A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



left for those of us who hold by Walton's tradition, and angle 

 for everything as opportunity comes. My own heart will 

 doubtless be full of passionate regret for the dead days when I 

 used occasionally to catch the salmon river at its right height, 

 and marvel at the water, which was the colour of cofTee and yet 

 clear ; or when I used to watch the droves of olives floating down 

 the placid Itchen and to put down the dignified trout one by 

 one. But things will not be so bad as they would be if these 

 pleasures alone made roseate my past. I shall be able to 

 recall other, far other, joys — for instance, the morning when 

 I set out to spin for trout, cut me a withy twig, tied thereto a 

 gut cast with a tiny hook at the end of it, and with a fragment 

 of worm began to catch a minnow or two for bait. And when 

 it fell to be luncheon time, there was I still angling for minnows, 

 all memory of the trout and the spinning clean gone from me. 

 There was a fascination about beguiling the eager, visible little 

 fish which was quite enough to keep me happy. The evening 

 yielded a noble brace of trout, caught on two of the minnows, 

 and I do not remember it any more vividly or gratefully than 

 the morning. 



The catching of minnows on a hook Is something of an art, 

 though it may be but an unimportant art. There are two 

 chief methods — to watch the bait and to watch the line — and if 

 you are fishing with an eye to the bait-can perhaps the second 

 is the better. When the minnows are plentiful they attack 

 the fragment of worm with such concentration and fury that 

 it is impossible to pick out one assailant from fifty others. 

 By watching the line, however, you can tell if one of them has 



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