68 



WORM-FISHING FOR TROUT. 



modern writers appear to think funny, calls the 

 Trout, would certainly let Mr. Moffat into at 

 least one angling secret with which he is at pre- 

 sent unacquainted, if he were to appear on the 

 banks of the Tweed, or the Spean, arrned with 

 such an apparatus. 



" It will thus be seen that a ' single hook ' for 

 Trout worm-fishing has been hitherto universally 

 recommended by angling authorities, with, as I 

 before stated, a solitary exception, and that is Mr. 

 Stewart, who in his * Practical 

 Angler/ boldly deviates from the 

 beaten track, and gives a diagram 

 (of which, for the sake of clearness, 

 a facsimile is appended) of a tackle 

 composed of four small hooks, in 

 lieu of the conventional single large 

 one. I give Mr. Stewart the greatest 

 credit for the originality of this idea, 

 which belongs to him alone ; at the 

 same time, I am not surprised at its 

 proving, as he himself admits, only 

 a modified success. Mr. Stewart 

 says that with this tackle he found 

 he could kill larger fish, but fewer 

 in number, than with the single 

 hook, and that this experience 

 confirmed by others. He attributes, and 



4-hook Tackle 

 (Baited). 



was 



I have no doubt correctly, the diminution in the 

 numbers of fish run, primarily to the circum- 

 stance of its being impossible properly to conceal 

 so large a number of hooks in a single worm, and 



