FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 desire to catch grayling in this fashion, I content myself by remarking 

 that it has been prohibited on those rivers where grayling are rightly 

 valued as a sporting and free -rising fish. 



It is claimed by those who practise it that worm-fishing for grayling 

 is a more delicate and difficult art than one who, like myself, has never 

 attempted it might suppose. Certainly the conditions under which this 

 branch of angling gives the best results are such as are prohibitive of 

 any other, for we are assured that there is no frost so severe and no water 

 so low and clear as to deter grayling from taking a worm daintily brought 

 to its notice by means of a very light float. I have no reason to doubt it, 

 but I have no intention of putting it to the test of experience; for although 

 I have had many a good day's sport with early salmon when I had 

 to break the ice away from the rings on my rod, and suck it off the 

 fly as it froze every few minutes, there are bounds to my ardour when it 

 comes to bait -fishing with a float in mid -winter. I feel of one mind with 

 Epiton in J. Lilly's "Endimion" (1591) when he says, "O 'tis a stately 

 occupation to stand foure houres in a colde morning and to have his nose 

 bitten with frost before his baite be mumbled with a fish ! " 



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