BAITS AND BAIT-CATCHING. 51 



long before the arm-chair age ought to have arrived, solely 

 because he was too headstrong or too stupid to practise a little 

 prudence and adopt a few common sense precautions in the 

 ' days of his youth.' 



Though not yet an old man, I have lived long enough to 

 already regret the folly of many an early recklessness. Like other 

 naturally hardy young fellows, I never used (on what may be 

 called the cast-iron-constitution theory), to bother myself about 

 ' wading boots and all that sort of molly-coddling,' and thought 

 it half the ' fun ' standing up to my waist in water all day, with 

 perhaps a few intervening ' duckings,' begotten rather of super- 

 fluous rashness than of reasonable necessity. 



Or again when I had been trolling and got my own or a 

 friend's best flight, or my last bait, well hitched up in the flags 

 under the opposite bank of the Avon or the Stour, not once, 

 but scores of times I have retrieved the situation by swimming 

 and remained damp for the rest of the day. The last time I 

 committed this betise, was, as I well remember, some three or 

 four years ago when spinning late in the autumn on Mr. Banks' 

 water on the Stour. It was a nasty chill raw October or 

 November day, and my friends on the bank thought I should 

 never get across, so cold and strong was the stream, and so thick 

 the weeds and other obstructions. As a matter of fact I just did 

 it and that was all ; I saved losing my last spinning-bait and 

 caught a chill which I verily believe will give me occasional 

 reminders to the end of my days. Another wise performance 

 of years gone by was shooting a Thames weir in flood time, in 

 tubs of such size and make as to practically ensure a capsize, 

 the fun being to swim out again with the boat, empty it, 

 and carrying it above the weir, repeat the performance ' till 

 further orders.' 



' Flood time ' on the Thames, means generally the time 

 when even swimming in a more common sense fashion should 

 be abjured ; what was likely to be the result in the way of 

 stored-up rheumatisms and neuralgias of this original and 

 striking development of the art ? 



