294 TROUT FISHING. 



Although the seasons may help you to give a 

 proximate guess as to the period, nothing but 

 experience of your own or the borrowed ex- 

 perience of another, will put you in possession 

 of the exact time. Fishing between it or after 

 it is a work of supererogation. An odd trout 

 may be hooked, but the chances are that it 

 will be a small and foolish one, with more 

 curiosity than discretion, and full of raw 

 greediness untempered by age or weight. 

 When the feeding time is ascertained, it is 

 only an incapable who fails to have good sport. 

 Of course the incapable can manage at any 

 hour of the day to drive the fish before him 

 like sheep, while he flogs the river over their 

 heads, and sends them scuttling off as swiftly 

 as shadows. One way he has of doing this 

 is to come as close to the bank as he can, and 

 fish with the stream. The effect of this in- 

 genious manoeuvre is that, as all the fish have 

 their heads up stream, they can scarce fail to 

 see the incapable, his rod, his flies, his uniform, 

 and all the rest of it. It is almost impossible 

 to cure a bad angler of the stupid custom to 

 which I refer, and for the reason that, fishing 



