PEEFACE. v 



course of what was upon the whole a very favourable and 

 even kind review, in one of the principal morning papers, 

 said that I was rather opinionated in saying which he 

 stated neither more nor less than the truth, and I plead 

 guilty to the charge ; for, in writing books on angling, I 

 have endeavoured to write them as far as possible from 

 my own experience, and to avoid, as far as I could, giving 

 a mere rechauffe from old angling works. Indeed, I have 

 striven to borrow as little as possible from any one, merely 

 giving what I know to be the ordinary methods and 

 practices in vogue as regards the sport of angling in these 

 later times. I hardly see how a person endeavouring to 

 do this could be other than opinionated. The question 

 appears to me to be, not whether I am opinionated, but 

 whether the opinions I have expressed are the best that 

 the angler can follow. Now I take upon me to say that I 

 have endeavoured to give the best methods and plans of 

 angling, and that, in doing so, I never have hesitated 

 and I should take shame to myself if I had to give full 

 credit to the authors of those plans for their inventions, 

 be they whom they may ; and, in doing so, I venture even 

 further to say, that I have often taken hints from brother 

 anglers where their ideas appeared good, and given them 

 the credit of them, but with whom on many other points 

 I have no sympathy or agreement whatever. Where I 

 have been able to speak solely from my own experience, 

 and where that has seemed to me the best to draw from, 

 I have not hesitated to do so. No doubt it would have 

 been far easier for me to have said Izaak Walton says so 

 and so, Salter recommends this, Eonald advises that, and 

 " Ephemera " the other. But angling has made large 

 strides since the days of those writers ; and though in 

 many instances their experience and advice still stands 



