THAMES TROUT-FISHING. 419 



in the attempt to fit them on hooks such as I have described. 

 Even when practice ought to have rendered me fairly expert, 

 I think that out of five bleak of my own baiting two would have 

 spun well, a third perhaps passably, while the two others would 

 have been complete failures. In fact, unless I had plenty of 

 time before me I used to make the baiting department over 

 to my skilful and trusty crony Tom Rosewell, than whom no 

 better hand ever guided a punt or dealt with the niceties of 

 tackle. 



The special difficulty of the flight of hooks which I have 

 described, with perhaps needless minuteness, lies in fixing 

 accurately the hooks at the tail-end, where you must begin your 

 baiting. Directions as to the mode of doing this would be so 

 much waste of paper. One hint, however, may prove useful. 

 Knock your bleak on the head a sharp flip with the nail of 

 your middle-finger will suffice and let him stiffen for a few 

 minutes before you bait him. I have seen many a one spoiled 

 by a hurried attempt to ' fettle ' him before muscular motion 

 had completely ceased. 



I have often been asked, ' Why so much care as to the true 

 and rapid spinning of your bait? Are not heavy trout often 

 taken with a big wobbling dace, utterly unlike your brilliant 

 ideal ? ' Such cases, I admit, do occur ; rarely, however, and 

 chiefly in deep eddies and a clouded water. I remember taking 

 one myself on the 3ist of March (then the last day of the pike- 

 fishing season) with gimp tackle and a full-sized trolling bait. 

 He was a lovely fish, as bright as a star. I guessed his weight 

 at 6 Ibs., but he never came to scale, for I thought myself 

 bound as a zealous member of a local angling association, not 

 to take a trout before the ist of April. But I would gladly 

 have eased my conscience after the fashion of a worthy Aus- 

 tralian friend, a sporting J.P., who shot a fine bustard out of- 

 season, on his way to a magistrates' meeting and opened the 

 proceedings by paying a guinea fine. This, however, was the 

 only instance in which I ever took a Thames trout in spinning 

 for pike, and the water was clearing after a flood. It did not 



