CREEPER FISHING. 153 



English rivers. He never mentions it as a bait; 

 but he knew it as a deadly one in its winged state, 

 and says that the fishes " will gorge themselves with 

 those flies till they purge again out of their gills." 

 Hawkins, writing a hundred years later than either, 

 had never seen it, while his " learned and ingenious 

 friend " knew it as a stone-fly, but not as a creeper. 

 So far as we are aware no books on angling treat of 

 it as a bait but those published in the present cen- 

 tury. Barker is known in angling history as the first 

 who found " following the roe" a successful expedient 

 for filling the creel ; Smaii as the first who found the 

 minnow to be a salmon bait ; but the name of the 

 originator of creeper-fishing must have been "written 

 upon water." 



The creeper is not such a short time " on" as the 

 trusty John imagined. The insects are in the river 

 all the year round. We have seen them in almost 

 every month of the year, and of all sizes, from an 

 eighth part of an inch in length to the full-grown 

 insect. But it must not be imagined that the season 

 for angling with the creeper extends over such a 

 period. In general we have found it a good bait 

 from about the middle of April to the middle of 

 June, when it merges into the stone-fly. One of 

 the largest takes we ever made with it was on the 



