THE AMERICAN TROUT. 15 



snows and blasts of winter, a warm day is very desirable ; 

 later, and in the heats of summer, a cold, windy day will 

 insure success. Dead calm is dangerous, although many 

 trout are taken in water as still, clear and transparent 

 as the heavens above. The first rule is never to give 

 up ; there is hardly a day but at some hour, if there be 

 trout, they will rise, and steady, patient industry disci- 

 plines the mind and invigorates the muscles. A south- 

 erly, especially a southeasterly wind, has a singular 

 tendency to darken the surface, and in clear, fine waters 

 is particularly advantageous ; a southwester comes next in 

 order ; a northeaster, in which, by the by, occasionally 

 there is great success, is the next ; and a northwester is 

 the worst and clearest of all. Give me wind on any 

 terms, a southerly wind if I can have it ; but give me 

 wind. It is not known what quality of the wind darkens 

 the water, it may be a haziness produced in the atmos- 

 phere, although with a cloudy sky the water is often too 

 transparent; it may be the peculiar character of the 

 waves, short and broken, as contradistinguished from 

 long and rolling ; but the fact is entitled to reliance. 



Slight changes will often affect the fish. On one day 

 in June, in the writer's experience, after having no luck 

 till eleven o'clock, the trout suddenly commenced rising, 

 and kept on without cessation, scarcely giving time to 

 cast, till two, when they as suddenly stopped. There was 

 no observable change in the weather, except the advent 

 of a slight haze, the wind remaining precisely the same. 

 I w r as much disappointed, not having half fished the 

 ground and being prevented, by the numbers that were 

 taken, from casting over some of the largest fish that 



