TROUT FISHING 



palmer made of a large hook. I had good sport until it grew 

 very light ; then I took off the red palmer and set to a black 

 palmer. I had good sport and made up the dish of fish, so I 

 put up my tackles and was with my lord at the time appointed 

 for the service.' 



Mr. Barker used a stronger line for night angling than he 

 did by day : he knew, as Walton knew, that ' in the night 

 the best Trouts come out of their holes.' 



General Venables, before mentioned, was the first angler 

 to improve upon the hair cast. In his Experienced Angler 

 (1662) he refers to the superior strength of ' the smallest lute 

 or viol strings,' the principal objection to which was that they 

 rotted so quickly in the water. It was reserved for Mr. William 

 Caesar, the lute master, to get over this objection : you would 

 remember that he told Pepys (18th March 1667) of a ' pretty 

 experiment of angling with a minnikin, a gut string varnished 

 over which keeps it from swelling ' ; in other words keeps it 

 from saturation and the resultant rotting. Mr. Caesar may 

 have obtained the idea from Venables' book ; on the other hand 

 it is quite likely he conceived it himself ; lute player as well as 

 angler, he well may have done so. 



I trust it may be not heresy to suggest that Walton had 

 leanings towards the worm rather than the fly. ^Vlien he 

 takes the education of his pupil in hand he puts worm-fishing 

 first : ' The Trout is usually caught with a worm, a minnow, 

 which some call a penk, or with a fly, viz. either a natural or an 

 artificial fly.' When Cotton begins his pupil's education it is in 

 these words : ' Why then, first of fly-fishing.' It seems at least 

 arguable that Walton preferred the worm while Cotton most 

 esteemed the fly. 



There is one passage in Walton which has ever been as a 

 first line of defence to him who, defying later or minor lawgivers 

 of the angle, prefers to fish down stream. ' And let me again 

 tell you that you keep as far from the water as you can possibly, 

 whether you fish with a fly or worm : and fish down stream. 

 And when you fish with a fly, if it be possible, let no part of 



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