CHAPTER VII. 



ON ANGLING WITH THE WORM. 



DISHING with the worm is not usually 

 held in such high estimation as it 

 deserves ; a circumstance entirely 

 owing to its being but very imperfectly under- 

 stood. Fly-fishers are apt to sneer at worm- 

 fishing as a thing so simple that any one 

 may succeed in it their notions of it being 

 that it is practised either when the waters 

 are swollen after rain, or with a float and sinkers 

 in some deep pool ; and it is not surprising that 

 with such ideas of it they should hold it in con- 

 tempt. Worm-fishing is only worthy of the name 

 of sport, when practised in streams inhabited by 

 w r ary trout when they are low and clear. Under 

 such circumstances it becomes a branch of the art, 

 which, to be pursued with success, requires the 

 most intimate acquaintance with the habits of the 

 trout and the nicest powers of casting ; and which 

 in point of difficulty is only inferior to fly-fishing. 

 Those anglers who despise worm-fishing as a thing 



