FROG HOPPING. 45 



soft silk Nottingham line ; have a perch hook on about 

 a foot of fine gut for the line, and a bullet of sufficient 

 weight made fast at the join between the foot of gut and 

 the silk line. Take a small lively frog (you can get any 

 number of them collected by country lads at the right 

 period of the year). Hook a very little bit of the skin of 

 the frog's back on the bend of the hook (just enough to 

 secure without damaging him) ; as Izaak sayeth, 'Treat him 

 as if you loved him,' though it may be a queer method of 

 expressing one's sentiments. Now, having wound all the 

 line up on your reel until the bullet touches the eye of the 

 rod-top, check the line so as to keep it there. You have 

 then but the foot of gut with the hook and frog hanging 

 from the point, and there are very few holes amongst 

 foliage, where you may desire to fish, through which this 

 cannot very easily be passed without catching in any 

 twigs. Having passed it through, and the rod-point being 

 over the spot you want to fish, release the line, and the 

 weight of the bullet will draw it out directly. As the frog 

 glides down towards the surface, ease the line slowly, as it 

 is not desirous to plump him or the bullet into the water, 

 but to keep him on the surface, so that not an inch of the 

 line should touch the water, but the frog should just rest, 

 as it were, upon the surface, the bullet being a foot above 

 him and quite out of the water, of course. The moment 

 the frog touches the water, he will begin to strike out, and 

 in his ineffective attempts to swim away he will kick up 

 such an attractive bobbery on the top of the water that all 

 the chubs within reasonable range will come to see what 

 the disturbance is, and to a certainty they will think it 

 necessary to take the disturber of the peace into custody. 

 Tastes differ. Some like frogs, and some cockchafers, 

 and some bumblebees. I have another friend who is a 

 very successful angler for chub on the Thames, and 

 who vows that no respectable chub is seen out after the 



