COARSE-FISHING MEMORIES 



succeeded in getting hold of it and bolting with it, and a gentle 

 strike at the right moment will lift a kicking little fish into the 

 upper air. But the right moment is not always easy to detect, 

 and many an apparently determined bite will yield no result. 

 For sport (if the Corinthians will pardon the word) I prefer to 

 angle where minnows are not quite so thick on the ground, and to 

 pick and choose among them. Sometimes there will appear a 

 real monster, three or even four inches long, and his capture 

 becomes a matter for earnest endeavour. When you have 

 him, you have a bait which a fish of prey can hardly resist. 



In some places, where you find a gravel bottom and about 

 three feet of gently flowing water, you may add the thrills of 

 gudgeon-fishing to your pleasure. The capture of visible 

 gudgeon is even more pleasant than the taking of minnows, 

 I think, because the fish, nosing about three or four together 

 in open order, are more leisurely in their behaviour, and once 

 they have taken the worm which you have artfully placed on 

 their line of progress they are not so apt to let it go again. 



Of course these be but lesser things, a preliminary to more 

 considerable undertakings. I have dwelt on them because 

 they illustrate the spirit of angling. If a man has it in him, 

 there is no branch of the sport, however insignificant, which 

 will not give him some entertainment and interest ; and a 

 capacity to enjoy the smaller kinds will connote an infinite 

 zest for the bigger. 



Among the bigger I am still uncertain as to what I love 

 best. I know where my chief ambition lies, and that is in a 

 narrow channel skirting an island in the Dorsetshire Stour. 



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