102 SPINNING FOR TROUT. 



possible tackle for mid-water fishing in low and 

 clear water. The popular belief would appear to be 

 strongly in favour of the reverse ; for bait spinning 

 under all circumstances, scarcely anything can be more 

 erroneous. The accomplished scientific troller will 

 extract fish where it is usually deemed almost an im- 

 possibility. And when an incredulous bungler fails 

 to effect a single capture, and returns troutless and 

 dispirited from the well stocked stream, fair sport will 

 often accompany the rodster who is really a master of 

 the trolling art. 



THE ROD, to be suitable for spinning, should be 

 bamboo or cane, light and stiff, and from twelve to 

 fourteen feet in length for open water ; but for small 

 streams eleven or twelve feet is recommended as be- 

 ing quite long enough. The sixteen and eighteen 

 feet double-handed rods, usually advocated, are now 

 deemed much too cumbrous, and are rapidly being 

 discarded. The greater utility of a single-handed 

 light rod has long been obvious to a large class of 

 anglers, and its admirers are yearly extending. East 

 India cane is the best adapted for rods where stiffness 

 and lightness are essential, it being extremely strong, 

 though reasonably pliable. The rod we use ourselves 

 for this style of angling is but ten feet in length, the 

 rings, however, are large and stationary, and we find 

 no difficulty in casting to eighty or ninety feet with a 

 tool of this description. The rings upon spinning 

 rods should all be upright and of fair size, so as to 

 admit of a free and unencumbered passage for the 

 line when carried out by the weight of the bait in 



