ARTIFICIAL MINNOWS. 153 



acquainted, held in much esteem by tried and able 

 anglers. In the whole course of my experience and 

 inquiry, I never heard of a single wonderful feat having 

 been achieved by any of them, although the qualities 

 and virtues of not a few have been expatiated upon, in 

 my presence, over and over again. One imitation of 

 the minnow, reckoned very deadly, has, as the seat of 

 its attractive qualities, a coating formed from the belly- 

 skin of the salmon; others are made of mother-of-pearl, 

 horn, whalebone, &c., and an additional sort of lure 

 introduced to Tweedside two or three years ago, under 

 sanguine hopes of its proving successful, consists of a 

 piece of crystal, shaped like a small fish, and set in metal . 

 This last-mentioned artifice, when brought to the test, 

 possesses, I understand, a certain degree of merit, that, 

 namely, of attracting the notice of the fish, and bringing 

 them towards the tackle. Invariably, however, they re- 

 fuse to seize it, turning tail when within arm's-length of 

 doing so, and only, instead of rewarding, provoking the 

 patience of the angler. Imitations of small fish, I can 

 readily believe, may prove tolerably successful during a 

 stiffish breeze, when trolled with in some Highland loch, 

 but on rivers, at least on those of the south of Scotland, 

 and I am convinced our northern ones also, they 

 assuredly do not answer. They want a very important 

 essential, and that is, smell or flavour, the sense of 

 which in trout is, as fishing with the salmon roe de- 

 monstrates, most exquisite. 



In this article on minnow trouting, I have omitted, 

 in its proper place, to allude to the English system of 

 capping the head of the bait, a plan which, when 

 adopted in connection with certain combinations of 

 hooks, materially, I allow, assists the spinning, but one, 

 the advantages of which are completely done away 



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