4i 6 SALMON AND TROUT. 



fully in earnest. Of course I took care that they should have 

 some 'solid pudding' to set against the loss of empty praise. 

 I took a hint from the dealings of the ' Angler in Norway ' with 

 the peasants who worked his boat, and made every sizeable 

 trout I took, a 'specie fish.' 



Your boatman secured and there is no lack of skilled 

 hands from Pangbourne to Teddington look well to your 

 tackle and bait. Let your trace be of round, clear gut, of 

 reasonable, not excessive, thickness. Some anglers by way of 

 being on the safe side use gut of preposterous strength, nearly 

 as opaque and as conspicuous as gimp. Such tackle throws 

 away chances in clear water, and is, in any case, superfluous. 

 I don't believe in sound gut of medium thickness being fairly 

 broken under ordinary circumstances, by any trout up to a 

 stone weight. No doubt if a heavy fish gets you unawares 

 round a pile or a root thus getting a dead pull unrelieved by 

 the play of the rod something must give way ; probably the 

 hold, or the hooks, or a treacherous knot, but very possibly a 

 link of your gut, however stout ; frayed, perhaps, in rubbing 

 against the hard-edged wood. The case is hopeless for any 

 tackle short of a cart-rope and a meat-hook. I ought, how- 

 ever, in candour to* mention one case in which a trace of what 

 I should condemn elsewhere as excessive strength may con- 

 ceivably prevent an 'imminent deadly breach.' A trout will 

 occasionally dash up from the deeper stream below, to where 

 the water is foaming over the apron of a weir, and the bleak 

 are flashing about in heedless play. If he takes your bait in 

 such a place, his first rush is sure to be exceptionally strong, as 

 he is in all haste to escape from his exposed position, and 

 often puts extra weight into his pull, from being half out of 

 the water. Under these circumstances, line should be given 

 instantly and freely, but the angler who is taken by surprise, 

 and holds too hard, may have the luck to save his fish by 

 tackle of maximum strength. Yet as to a fair break even in 

 this case of a powerful fish's greatest advantage, 



I rather tell thee what is to be feared 

 Than what I fear. 



