BEETLE-FISHING. 267 



creeper, get them down to you as soon as possible, and 

 with as little ado, so as not to disturb the others above. 

 The greatest nuisance of this fishing is that you are so 

 perpetually called upon to renew your bait, for every run, 

 every stroke, and every hitch, destroys it. Perhaps the 

 most deadly time of any to use the creeper is about the 

 period when the chief transition from creeper to fly is 

 going on ; and he is a muff who, with a fair chance in his 

 favour, cannot fill a basket with good trout then. 



BEETLE-FISHING. 



Various beetles, both land and water, may be used in 

 precisely the same way as thejcreeper. Anglers do not, 

 as a rule, pay half enough attention to the various species 

 of Coleoptera on which the trout feed. Yet the importance 

 of this kind of food, not only to trout but to many other 

 sorts of fish, may be seen by cutting open a trout when 

 they are perhaps rising badly, when a large proportion of 

 the contents of the fish's stomach will be found to be 

 beetles ; and a good basket may often be made either with 

 the natural or artificial beetle when the fish are not rising 

 to the fly. In mentioning the real beetle, of course its use 

 would be confined only to those waters where bait-fishing 

 is legitimate. The best land-beetles to use are the cock- 

 roach (an excellent bait for mill-tails), the coch-y-bondu, 

 Marlow buzz, or fern-webb, of. which I have already 

 spoken. It may be found plentifully in many places in 

 June and July. Similar to it is the cowdung-beetle, 

 found under cowdung of some days' standing ; but there 

 are many others which may be used on an emergency, 

 and which will be found to kill well. Water-beetles 

 are very numerous, and will, of course, also be found 

 valuable aids to the fisherman. The method of using 

 them is similar to that described in creeper-fishing. The 



