412 SALMON AND TROUT. 



skilful trout-fisher, with a quick eye and nice hand when I 

 requested him to fish with me on the opening day of the 

 trouting-season. ' No, F.,' said he, 'it won't do. I have done 

 with toiling and spinning. Three seasons have I fished for 

 Thames trout. I have been broken five times. I have taken 

 but one trout, weighing one pound, and that the cat ate ! ' 



The climax was so comical that I forbore to ' saddle him 

 with a judgment ' for basketing a fish under size. 



His record a strictly true one was certainly not en- 

 couraging. Yet in spite of this and other kindred examples, 

 or as some would say warnings, I think the difficulty of 

 taking trout in the Thames is a good deal exaggerated. My 

 own experience, I am told, has been exceptionally fortunate, 

 and if I stated its general result I should hardly expect to be 

 believed by those who do not know me. It will be more to 

 the purpose to point out the reasons which seem to me to 

 account for an unduly low average of success and the details 

 of practice which I have found useful ; citing my own record 

 only when it has some distinct value as illustrating a principle. 



In the first place it appears to me that Thames trout-fishing as 

 commonly practised is too much an affair of weirs and floodgates 

 of spinning hour after hour in a strong rush of water, at, or 

 near, the same spot. No doubt a good hand, with abundant 

 leisure may, if he steadily haunts two or three good weir-pools 

 on likely days, make certain of a few fish in the course of the 

 season, and those, mark you, good ones. Moreover, if he 

 likes to take things easily, he will have less severe and con- 

 tinuous work than he would encounter in fishing a series of 

 heavy streams broad-cast with the spinning-bait, with an average 

 of something like forty yards to each throw. Nor again is his 

 sport wholly monotonous when he is not actually fast in a fish. 

 I never could make the first cast of the day in the central rush 

 of a good weir without a stirring sense of expectation. And 

 when a goodly trout shows himself well on the feed within 

 reach of the weir-fisher's station, there is no slight excitement 

 in the attempt to guide the spinning bleak or gudgeon so as to 



