72 TROLLING IN STAFFORDSHIRE. 



a good day's trolling when the water has been 

 discoloured. 



Troller Nobbes, whose memory is duly honoured 

 among the toasts of the Walton and Cotton Fishing 

 Club at the social and pleasant dinners of that 

 worthy society, mentions the months of March and 

 April as seasonable and auspicious to the troller. 

 I am sorry to differ with our father in the art of 

 trolling, but I cannot think that a real angler, for 

 the mere sake of catching a pike, would wish to 

 troll in those months, for the fish are then sick 

 and out of condition, having cast their spawn so 

 recently. To be sure the month of April is not 

 without its delights, and as the excellent troller 

 Nobbes observes, 'it is a month so inviting to 



sport, that it is both pleasant and profitable. The 

 ' chiqring birds do then begin to seek their mates, 

 ' and the very silent cuckoo that forsook her colder 

 ' climate, does again salute her sprouting branches, 



and tell us the news of an approaching summer. 

 ' You may then please yourself to see the tender 

 ' swallow so joyful at her first flight, when she 



seems to make obeisance to your bait, and displays 

 ' her wings upon the surface of the waters.' This 

 is a pretty description of the approach of spring, 

 when all nature is animated, and the earth teems 

 with renovated existence, but it is no apology for 

 a practice which every true sportsman must de- 

 precate. That pike are hungry in March and 



