84 ANGLING. 



You enter the stream, making as little disturbance as 

 possible, and, letting out as much line as you can con- 

 veniently cast, throw the bait as you would a fly, straight 

 up stream, and let it travel down towards you, raising the 

 point of the rod so as to feel the line as it comes home. 

 When the bait has come within reasonable distance, pull 

 it out with a smart, steady drag (no jerking) over your 

 shoulder, as you would a fly, only make the sweep behind 

 less direct and more circular, so as to avoid damaging the 

 worm by flicking or sudden checking of it. A good worm 

 fisher can thus cast about twice the length of his rod, and 

 his worm usually touches the surface of the water behind 

 him at nearly every cast. It is not easy to get well into 

 this cast so as to avoid damage to the bait; when once it 

 is learnt, however, it is simple enough ; but, whenever you 

 see the line stop in its downward course towards you, you 

 must strike, as the bait is often taken in this kind of 

 fishing while still in mid water. If you have to wade, 

 make as little splash or wave as possible, taking a step at 

 every cast, and pitching the bait up into every run and 

 channel that seems likely to hold a trout. Very large 

 bags are often made in this way of fishing. As to whether 

 worm fishing, or for the matter of that any other kind of 

 fishing, is sportsmanlike or not, I don't enter upon it^as 

 these things are governed chiefly by feeling, and the 

 custom of the country, and there is a time-honoured old 

 motto, which says, " What is one man's meat is another 

 man's poison." So much for worm fishing. 



BEETLE, CRAB, or CREEPER FISHING is conducted in 

 precisely the same way as this last. The crab or creeper 

 is the larva of the stone fly, and is found in many sandy, 

 gravelly rivers, up to about the middle of May. Having 

 collected a sufficient stock of them for your fishing, put 



