TROUT-FISHING 



By the RIGHT HON. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, BART. 



" The Trout makes the Angler most gentlemanly and readiest Sport of all other Fishes, 

 if you angle with a made Fly and a line twice your Rod's length or more (in a plaine water 

 without wood) of three Haires, in a dark windy Day from afternoone." 



William Lawson's "Secrets of Angling," 1614. 



'^'^ NY angler who can recall the circumstances of the capture 



/^k of his first trout has it in his power to revive at will 



g ^^ one of the brightest images that enrich his halls of 



A^^^^L memory. He may have enjoyed many subsequent 



M ^^ triumphs; he may have taken a double first — been 



.^iC pL. successful in love, in war, in business — have won a 



hotly -contested election or have coaxed the coy Eritrichium nanum to 

 unfold its azure necklace after a soaking English winter. For each of 

 these prizes many good men have striven, and striven in vain; and none 

 of those who have won them can have experienced the thrill of 

 triumph without alloy that swells the heart of the lad who draws his first 

 speckled beauty from the brook. Is this the language of hyperbole ? I 

 trow not. It is a plain, unvarnished description of my own feelings when, 

 at a very tender age, I followed the instruction of a faithful old keeper 

 by dangling a worm under a bridge over a westland burn. The line 

 tightened; the ensuing struggle was brief, for I fancy the tackle was none 

 of the finest, the water being in spate; and in a minute or two the prize 

 was kicking upon the wet sward. I care not what were the dimensions 

 of this notable fish; even at the distance of more— considerably more — 

 than half a century they do not loom very large; but who shall estimate 

 the value of a jewel by its bulk ? I felt that I had been admitted to the rank 

 of trout-fisher, and that fortune had no richer boon to bestow. I live be- 

 side that burn now, and never dream of wetting a line in it, though the 

 trout therein are as brisk and numerous as of yore; but as often as I cross 

 that bridge do my thoughts fly back to the golden morn when I first 

 traversed the gamut of desire, pursuit, conquest and possession. 



Trout-fishing has undergone a double revolution since that distant 



day. "Stewart's Practical Angler" was first published in 1857, opening 



the eyes of north -country anglers to the error of their method of fishing 



downstream for trout that lie with their heads upstream. Hitherto nobody 



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