CHAPTER I. 

 PRELIMINARIES. 



What to fish for The town angler's ideal The tackle-shop 

 The general rod The reel A good line How to 

 put it on the reel Creel, landing-net, and tackle-book 

 Floats, gut, and sundries The pleasure of neat gear 

 Worms, how to catch and keep them Making up lines. 



THE first thing the novice has to do when he has 

 once made up his mind to become an angler is to 

 decide whether he will confine himself to one 

 branch of the sport, such as trout fishing, or whether 

 he will fish impartially for anything that he can get 

 at. Opportunity will help him to decide this 

 problem. If he lives in a district of trout streams 

 such as Dartmoor, or if he is in the habit of 

 spending all his leisure there, he will naturally find 

 trout fishing to be most worth his while. But if he 

 lives in London or some other great city, and 

 wishes to get his fishing within comparatively easy 

 reach and without too great expenditure of time and 

 money, he will on the whole be likely to get most 

 enjoyment out of all-round angling. The ideal for 

 the city-dweller is undoubtedly to get a day in the 



