90 THE TROUT. 



private conviction that there is now at least little 

 practically to be learnt from Izaak Walton's 

 " Complete Angler," and that the reading of it 

 is rather heavy work than otherwise. 



Mr Stewart's admirable little book is of a dif- 

 ferent stamp. I am convinced that a more skilful 

 angler than Mr Stewart does not exist. He has 

 probably killed a hundred trout where I have 

 killed one, and in a day's fishing would give me 

 a start till lunch-time and then beat me. With 

 this firm conviction, I shall still venture to recom- 

 mend to my readers an entirely opposite mode of 

 fishing to that so ably advocated by that gentle- 

 man. 



Before discussing the subject, I will record only 

 to show the extreme divergence of opinion that 

 existed, and probably still exists, among writers on 

 the subject of angling a few random notes which 

 I accidentally stumbled upon in an old memoran- 

 dum-book, and which I had extracted from various 

 authors some thirty years ago, when I first be- 

 came a follower of the " gentle art." Here they 

 are : 



"Rods. A rod cannot be too stiff; it is impossible to 

 throw a line lightly, or at all against the wind, with a pliable 

 rod." 



" Purchase your rod in Ireland ; they are always pliable, 



