PREFACE 



TO 



THE FIRST EDITION 



WHEN first infected with the fever of Angling, 

 more years ago than I care to count up, my 

 ambition was to catch every species of freshwater 

 fish, from the minnow up to the salmon, which 

 inhabits our British waters. That satisfied, my next desire 

 was to write a work, which should contain within one volume 

 (as far as might be possible) the fullest and most varied 

 information upon angling generally, in each branch of the art 

 which had ever been published ; and with this resolve I com- 

 menced collecting the matter for the present work nearly 

 twenty years ago. Taken up and laid aside from time to time, 

 little by little it has steadily progressed towards completion. 

 In the course of that period of time I have taken occasion to 

 visit and to fish nearly every river of note in the kingdom ; my 

 connection with The Field affording me peculiar facilities for 

 obtaining permission to fish very many waters which are 

 closely locked against the general public ; and I have roamed 

 England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland over to gather fresh 

 knowledge, and to put it into a practical and concentrated 

 form for the use of my readers. 



A modern work on general Angling has long been much 

 needed. We have works upon fly-fishing, and excellent ones 

 too ; we have good works upon spinning and trolling ; we have 

 few modern works upon bottom-fishing at large ; and we have 

 no modern book upon all of these styles combined, since the 

 last book of any note of that sort, which is "Ephemera's" 

 Handbook, was published twenty years ago, and angling has 

 made great strides in the last twenty years. 



One thing the student may rely on, viz. all that is set down 

 here is the result of carefully conned experience, often proved. 

 I have not entered the realms of fancy, and I have not borrowed 



