CLEAR WATERS 



amused to find some time before his death, an arrange- 

 ment of hooks, though no doubt he did use it, called 

 by his name. Every trout fisherman in England and 

 America knows the Stewart tackle ; not one in fifty 

 ever heard of the great Border angler who died forty 

 years ago. I once found myself fishing beside him, 

 and felt the same thrill I had experienced a year before 

 at being in with W. G. Grace in a country match, who, 

 by the way, returned my devotional attitude by 

 running me out most flagrantly. 



I prefer the single hook myself, perhaps from long 

 use of it in North America. In burns one mainly 

 fishes the pools, as they are small and all astir. But 

 in rivers the modus operandi is to wade up stream and 

 fish the shallower rapids, the quick waters, and the 

 eddies. Rippling, stony shallows a foot deep that 

 you would hardly throw a fly on are likely places with 

 the worm. A very stiff, light fly-rod of about eleven 

 feet is my preference for this work, and a fine cast of, 

 say, six feet. A line a little longer than the rod can 

 be readily cast by various methods, and that without 

 making any appreciable commotion on the water, 

 which is generally itself in a more or less lively state. 

 One throws either straight up stream, or diagonally 

 up to the right or left, but you will hook most of your 

 fish right ahead of you. A trout fisherman's instinct, 

 whether used to the worm or not, tells him his distance, 

 and when and where he is out of sight, though it is 

 remarkable how closely you can approach trout in 

 broken water from immediately below them. The 

 novice, in other respects trout-wise, soon learns by ex- 

 perience the sort of water in which fish take a worm 

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