70 TROUT LORE 



belief in ghosts, and patience raised to the nth 

 power. 



Perhaps the foregoing paragraph has stirred 

 the "practical" fisherman to wrath and he is in- 

 sistently asking about now, "And is that all you 

 have to say in favor of night fishing?" Indeed 

 not, my dear sir, though I have long put poesy 

 first. Night fishing appeals to me also because 

 under certain conditions it is the most successful 

 method. In some much-fished streams such as 

 exist near centers of population, through much 

 persecution the fish have gradually acquired the 

 habit of feeding at night ; and he who would take 

 the large trout must conform his habits to meet 

 the changed conditions. I could mention a num- 

 ber of Middle West streams falling under this 

 head. Again, in midsummer, when the water 

 is low, the sun unremitting in heat, and the trout 

 unduly wary, you will find them feeding up to 

 midnight often and sometimes the whole night 

 through. No doubt every lover of speckled 

 trout who reads this chapter can remember days 

 and days when he has followed some stream be- 

 neath a blazing sun, having for his reward 

 copious perspiration and a few fingerling fish. 

 The solution of that problem would have been 

 night-fishing. So successful is the method that 



