L".N; HOW TO WORK THE GRASSHOPPER. 



a wasp-grub imitation, made of a very light buff or dirty 

 white wool, in the same way as the grasshopper, which is 

 almost equally killing for grayling and trout. 



The method in which this curious lure is employed at 

 Leintwardine, which is perhaps the head quarters of it, 

 and where I have killed many fine grayling with it, is as 

 follows : Having saved as long into the winter as possible 

 a good store of gentles or maggots, you stick on the hook 

 which protrudes from the green monstrosity a good bunch 

 of gentles, six or seven perhaps. Then, dropping the bait into 

 the stream to be fished, in order to see the depth, you fix, 

 as if it was a float on the line, a bit of sliding quill. This 

 is simply used to let you know how deep your bait is down, 

 and when it touches bottom. Without it you could form 

 no idea. Then coming to the pool, stream, or eddy, you cast 

 in just clear of the heavy stream, letting the bait go to the 

 bottom, and as soon as it touches jerking it up and letting 

 drop again in short jumps, and drawing it hither and 

 thither while doing so, so as to search the entire water 

 thoroughly, or all such parts of it as are likely to hold fish. 

 You strike at every touch, tap or nibble you may feel ; and 

 as the tackle is strong and the hook big, you do not lose 

 many fish when once fairly hooked. It is indeed a most 

 destructive method, and kills all the largest and best fish ; 

 and it ought only to be tolerated when the grayling get so 

 far ahead as to want thinning down pretty freely, as is the 

 case oftentimes at Leintwardine. 



To give some idea of the deadly nature of this bait 

 on some streams, I have known instances where, by the us& 

 of it, large twenty-five or thirty pounds baskets have been 

 filled and emptied three times over in one day's fishing by 

 a single rod. Its use is confined chiefly to the Worcester 

 and Shropshire streams the tributaries of the Severn, in 

 fact. 



Grayling may also be whipped for with the gentle, the 



