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 pos- 

 sible) the fullest and most varied information upon 

 Angling generally, in every branch of the art, which had 

 ever been published ; and with this resolve I commenced 

 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 com- 

 pletion. In the course of that twenty years I took 

 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. 



