LIVE-BAITING. 281 



nights get warm, and the water low and clear, they appear 

 to draw more up to the weirs. Perhaps bait is more 

 plentiful there at such times. Although it is the custom 

 to fish for them with a neat little bait about three-and-a- 

 half inches long, yet I have known the best fish hooked 

 with a large jack-bait and gimp-tackle after they had been 

 fished over with the usual small baits for weeks in vain. 

 Probably the larger bait tempted them ; and, indeed, if 

 the angler should see a Thames trout feeding, he will more 

 often see him chasing a large bait than a small one. 



Owing to their shyness of the spinning-bait, it has be- 

 come greatly the practice of late years to fish for them 

 with a live bait, sinking and drawing with but a couple 

 of shot and a single hook, or a triangle hooked through 

 the nose, and a long and light line out. It is a mighty 

 killing plan if the fish be well on the feed, but is not so. 

 sportsmanlike a method as spinning. Some even go the 

 length of fishing the weirs with a combination of pater- 

 noster and large float ; but this certainly savours more of 

 pot-hunting than sportsmanship, so I say no more of it 

 than that the practice does prevail. 



The great art and mystery of Thames trout-fishing is 

 unwearied perseverance. If the angler can make up his 

 mind when he has ' spotted ' a fish to sit and spin over 

 him for hours, and keep up his expectation of a run for 

 every minute in the twenty-four, perhaps for a week or 

 more, he may, if he has luck, get a fish in the course of a 

 week or two ; but even then it is no certainty. His best 

 chance is early in the morning, before the fish have been 

 disturbed by boats and barges or by other anglers. More 

 trout are killed when they come on the feed for the first 

 time in the day than in all the twenty-four hours besides, 

 because they have had a long rest, and are sure to be 

 more sharp-set and less suspicious. 



In fishing a weir, I have often seen anglers standing; 



