THE ART OF SPINNING. 199 



for more than one day. Therefore it is useful to 

 have a bottle of pickled baits by one. It is also 

 useful to be able to catch one's own baits at need, 

 and I always carry a cast of fine gut and a few tiny 

 hooks for that purpose. It does not take long to 

 catch a dozen minnows from a shoal, baiting the 

 hook with a small fragment of worm, and using a 

 withy wand as a temporary rod. Bleak and small 

 dace can also be caught in warm weather by a 

 gentle or morsel of bread paste dangled in the 

 water close to the surface, but when one wants 

 them very badly they are surprisingly difficult to 

 hook. Gudgeon have to be fished for on the 

 bottom with a little red worm and float tackle. A 

 gentle stream 4ft. or 5ft. in depth, flowing over 

 clean gravel, is the home of gudgeon, but they are 

 uncertain feeders, and it is not always easy to 

 catch them small enough for trout and perch baits 

 except with a net. 



The "cast net" is the best of all, but it is 

 difficult to use, and one gets very wet in throwing 

 it. I have been content to leave it to the keeper, 

 and myself to use a round net about 24in. across, 

 weighted at the bottom and depending from a pole 

 or the end of a boathook by a cord, which is called 

 a " minnow wonder." This is dropped into shallow 

 water where one can see minnows, gudgeon, or 



