140 TEOUT FISHING 



of attraction ; and since the beetle is more easily 

 obtained, more tenacious of life, much harder, and 

 more economical of time, and more general in 

 application, I incline towards a preference to the 

 beetle for general use. I am not sure, too, that 

 the fern web is not the more uncertain of the two. 

 The rivers on which these beetles (I shall now 

 drop the term fern web, being supposed to mean 

 either) are so destructive, are any in which the 

 main current is broken up into eddies and little 

 stickles ; where, indeed, there is rapidity of water 

 and richness in detail of stream ; where you can 

 stand, and at a glance see the exact spot that 

 half-a-dozen good trout would each appropriate 

 to himself as a choice feeding place. You will 

 take trout with it in pools formed by the entire 

 body of water ay, and in the very centre of these 

 pools ; you would take more by the banks, or at 

 the head of rapids, on either side of them, and 

 most when the water is so broken up, that the trout 

 are forced to select their peculiar and individual 

 feeding holes. In all streams, it is necessary to 

 keep in the water ; and in large streams, by walk- 

 ing up the current, you can, when the waters get 

 very low, generally find plenty of these dainty 

 feeding spots of the large trout. Often, when 

 bushes hang far out over the edge of the water, 

 though there be scarce an appearance of move- 

 ment in the water, you may, by a well-directed 

 cast under the bushes and into very shallow water, 

 turn out a fine old gormandizer who has been 

 lurking in his secluded retirement under the 



