INTRODUCTORY. xv 



years, but of spirit) who wishes to begin at the very 

 beginning, and who, it is presumed, starts without 

 any preconceived ideas on the subject at all. With 

 the many admirable books of instruction on fishing 

 I can, of course, make no attempt to vie ; what I 

 have to say will barely serve as an introduction to 

 them, but it may perhaps make reading them later 

 a little more profitable for the beginner. Equally 

 of course, I make no pretence of instructing the 

 practised angler, who has his own store of 

 experience at his back ; he instructs himself at 

 the riverside, which is the best school of all. 

 But the absolute beginner needs a few hints 

 before he enters it, and those I have tried to 

 give. 



The book makes no pretence of exhausting its 

 subject; there is, for example, much left unsaid 

 with regard to tackle, natural history, and other 

 things which properly receive an angler's attention. 

 Nor is abiding merit claimed for some of the 

 methods suggested ; that is to say, experience is 

 quite likely to make a novice discard them for 

 others. But when he feels able to take his own 

 line he may fairly consider himself a novice no 

 longer. What I have chiefly tried to ensure in 

 these pages is simplicity and developement by easy 

 stages dwelling more fully on beginnings than 



