LIVE-BAITING FOR TROUT AND PERCH. 189. 



known as " roving," also a style of fishing in which 

 no float is required. The cast is arranged as for 

 legering, except that I only have a very small 

 bullet, just enough to take the bait down to the 

 bottom, on which I do not allow it to remain. I 

 aim at keeping the bait in slow but constant 

 motion, now sinking, now being drawn up, now 

 being pulled up stream, now down, working over 

 and through all the places where I expect to find 

 fish. A bite is easily detected by a stoppage of 

 the line, followed by a movement caused by agency 

 other than the rod. Then I count five or ten as 

 the case maybe and tighten. Unfortunately, rivers 

 are often too weedy for this style of fishing, but 

 where it is possible it is very fascinating. Often, 

 by the way, I have found a worm used thus* 



* Worm-fishing for trout has not been mentioned before, 

 partly because it has not been particularly pertinent, partly 

 because in general it is a poor game. When a mountain 

 river is in yellow flood, or just beginning to clear, catching 

 trout with worm in the eddies is an easy matter, too ea>y 

 indeed. On south -country chalk -streams the worm is the 

 abominable thing, or one of them, the Alexandra type of fly 

 being another. There are, however, circumstances in which 

 worm-fishing is permissible enough, on such an overgrown 

 little brook as that described, for instance ; there are plenty 

 of them in the midlands and south. Again, what is called 

 "clear-water worming" is a proceeding which calls for a 

 good deal of skill. It is practised on mountain streams in 



