286 TROUT FISHING. 



render your basket heavier, unless the trout be, 

 as an Irish gamekeeper once observed to a 

 neophyte, " a fool of a trout." The length 

 of line left out must be proportioned not 

 only to the size of the rod, but to the ex- 

 perience of the gentleman at the butt of it. 

 The fact of the matter is, that no reading of 

 the thousand and one authorities on the topic 

 of fly casting, is worth a dozen lessons from an 

 angler by the side of a stream. Trout casting 

 cannot be learned theoretically. Rivers, too, 

 should be specially observed, and their pecu- 

 liarities carefully noted. A stranger going to 

 a new stream should consult a local angler as to 

 the flies that take best in it, and the favourite 

 haunts of the larger fish. There are plenty of 

 tempting-looking spots on a river over which 

 a rambler will cast for ten minutes with the 

 most sanguine expectations, and from which a 

 fish has seldom if ever been pulled. Then 

 there are streams in which the fish will rise in 

 defiance of the sort of wind and weather which 

 you have hitherto thought precluded the 

 notion of sport. As a general rule, soft 

 days, with medium water of a clear brown, we 



