148 PAR-TAIL 



to get hold when a trout bites. Swivels are necessary 

 on this, as on minnow tackle, also shot to make it 

 sink half-depth in rough water ; and thus prepared, 

 it is fished with the same way as the minnow. 



Though trout will take the par-tail occasionally 

 in any state of water, exactly as they do the minnow, 

 yet the best time for using it is on the first swell 

 of a flooded muddy river, and then best in the 

 shallow, just above, or on the break of a stream. 

 In this case I prefer using drag hooks that is two 

 hooks, No. 9 or 10, tied back to back on a strong 

 gut, attached to the line an inch or two above the 

 other hooks, and projecting three or four inches out 

 beyond all. The first trial I made of this was when 

 I was one day obliged to give up fly-fishing by a 

 sudden flooding of the water from a thunder shower. 

 This was exactly on the spot where the Merton 

 Bridge is at present founded. Of a dozen good trouts 

 then caught in a few minutes, eight were hooked 

 outside the body by these trail hooks. I have con- 

 sequently preferred them ever since in coloured 

 water, and with them have been always proportion- 

 ally successful. 



In minnow and par-tail fishing, however, one can- 

 not succeed well every day on the same spots of 

 water : the reason is quite obvious. 



