CONCLUSION. 241 



book or article is at the date of its publication, it 

 does not follow that it will be accurate five, or even 

 two, years later. Change is a melancholy but 

 insidious thing, and conditions- are apt to alter 

 materially from lustre to lustre. Therefore, before 

 staking a holiday on the faith of a printed page, an 

 angler will always do well to make inquiry as to the 

 permanence of the conditions of which he has read. 

 Of whom, he may justly ask, shall he inquire? 

 The natural person to know about the state of 

 things is the local tackle-maker. Every town of 

 any importance, besides many of no importance, 

 has its tackle-maker or dealer, and his address can 

 easily be gleaned from a county directory, at which 

 most people can get in one way or another. Some 

 tackle-dealers advertise in the sporting papers, 

 moreover, and so give their addresses ; and a few 

 ot them give valuable notes about the fishing in 

 their districts in the catalogues which they issue. 

 Information so obtained may, of course, be a little 

 coloured by patriotism, and probable baskets may 

 possibly be estimated from the doings of local 

 experts with whom a stranger would not be able to 

 vie, but, on the whole, I have found provincial 

 tackle-dealers uncommonly good fellows and have 

 owed them many debts of gratitude for " information 

 received. ); I need, perhaps, hardly say that the 



