THAMES TROUT-FISHING. 427 



found in the width of the river, and the difficulty of getting 

 at the likeliest runs from the bank. 



There is one legend concerning the capture of a patriarchal 

 trout at Henley Bridge in which the May fly plays a curious 

 part. The fish in question is said to have had his haunV 

 some yards below one of the arches, and to have been for 

 several years so plied witii baits of every kind that he became 

 as thoroughly temptation-proof as St. Anthony himself. At 

 length an inventive Londoner tried him with a live bleak, 

 about two feet above which dangled a live May fly on a fine 

 drop-link. The bleak, judiciously steered, was brought across 

 the wary trout's field ot vision, in apparent pursuit of the 

 insect Father Fario naturally assumed that this must be the 

 genuine article, and straightway proceeded to make a mouthful 

 of the bleak, which, unluckily for him, had not only a small 

 guiding-hook in its nose, but also a triangle craftily hitched 

 behind its back fin. I do not vouch for the truth of this 

 legend, which has been more than once related to me, but 

 never with the name of the artful dodger who devised the 

 successful plot. An incredulous reader might certainly be 

 justified in remarking that such a feat as this, if real, must 

 have immortalised the performer and placed his name high 

 among the worthies of the gentle craft. Let the objection 

 stand for what it is worth. ' I tell the tale as 'twas told to me.' 

 And it may serve to introduce the question of livebait-fishing 

 for Thames trout. It is certainly not a sporting method, and 

 demands a minimum of skill. It has not, like spinning or fly- 

 fishing, the recommendation of active exercise, and there would 

 be no great loss in abandoning, or forbidding it altogether. 

 Yet we must allow for different circumstances and tempera- 

 ments. There will always be anglers found and those, 

 perhaps, not among the least thoughtful and cultivated of the 

 brotherhood to whom fishing is not so much an outlet for 

 bodily activity or for the power of ingenious contrivance, as a 

 'contemplative man's recreation;' an occasion for peaceful 

 meditation and well-earned reoose. Those who thus reorard 



