FLY FISHING FOE TEOUT. 103 



Don't pull hard at a trout when he is down stream, 

 more particularly if he lies head up towards you. It is a 

 dangerous thing to do. If you can, always keep below your 

 fish, and coax him down. In the first place he won't dis- 

 turb the water so much, and in the next it is the safest way 

 to deal with a fish, and the quickest method of tiring him. 



When you are going to land your fish, don't be in 

 a hurry nor in a flurry ; bring the fish steadily round 

 within reach, let the netsinan stand with the net under 

 water, so that the fish may, almost, as it were, be led into 

 it and until the fish is almost within the ring the less 

 obtrusive or active the netsman is the better. When he 

 sees the fish within his power a steady upward sweep will 

 do the business. More fish are lost by dashing at them, 

 and more aggravation also caused thus than by almost 

 any other means. The Irishman who having dashed at a 

 salmon with the gaff, and scratched him, after his master 

 had with incalculable patience and skill humoured the fish 

 in out of most dangerous ground, and when another 

 minute's patience would have safely secured the fish, and 

 who stood exclaiming with pride and delight, "Begorra, I 

 hot him that toime ! " may or may not be a satisfactory 

 picture, but the feelings of the master who sees his fish go 

 clean the other side of that particular rock, which the less 

 said about the better is a picture also, which likewise 

 perhaps the less is said about the better. If you have a man 

 who is a bungler, take the net and land your fish yourself, 

 and when you get him home at night, you may call him 

 "Cassio" if you please, and you may even "love him 

 well," but be sure that " he never more be officer of 

 thine." Having got your fish on shore, your operation is 

 complete, knock the fish on the head, and put him in the 

 basket, never let the poor wretch die of slow suffocation 



