ON RAPID STREAMS. 155 



shady retired places in deep woods the fish are 

 dark, mean skulkers, the very opposite of the 

 lovers of the beetle. On the Barle below Dulver- 

 ton, on the Exe, and on the Taw, the beetle is 

 good, and in such places as are rich in detail, 

 much execution may be done. 



In fishing with the beetle you must not be 

 satisfied with large numbers only, you must have 

 superior size ; and if on a good day, in the same 

 water, you are only killing fish of the same size 

 as your neighbour with the artificial fly, take it 

 off and use another bait, provided you are equally 

 skilled in all the various ways of -fishing, and you 

 should not rest satisfied till you are master of 

 them all. 



Now I have endeavoured to make the reader 

 despise all ideas of finikin pottering dapping with 

 the beetle. I have tried to make him use it 

 boldly and throw it determinedly, and altogether 

 perhaps he may think it is a clumsy, bungling 

 way of fishing not so, however; the bait is clumsy, 

 I admit, but the mode of fishing requires par- 

 ticular skill, and for great success, much know- 

 ledge of the habits of the trout and considerable 

 experience will alone enable a fisherman to use 

 the beetle to its full powers of killing. My own 

 mind, however, has always been disinclined to 

 beetle-fishing. To me it is of all the modes of 

 fishing I shall describe (excepting the minnow, 

 with which it is on an equality) the least plea- 

 surable to the fisherman ; for as soon as he has 

 learnt the precise feeding spots of the trout, and 



