MODEL SPINNING-POOL. 153 



Other animals prefer a change of dishes as well as 

 aldermen ! Certain it is, that trout take the minnow 

 most freely when the water is as described. I do not 

 know whether the brilliant silvery white of the minnow's 

 belly shows better in contrast with the brown colour of 

 the surrounding fluid, and appears more tempting, or 

 whether it conceals the hooks and tackle better ; but this 

 I know, that the best sport is obtained, and the largest 

 fish killed, invariably when a river is in this state. 



The beau-ideal of a pool for the operations of the 

 minnow-spinner is where a strong stream, running over 

 a shallow bank of gravel, rock, or sand, loses itself in 

 a deep dark pool below, with boiling eddies seething 

 round on each side ; if bushes, roots, or rocks, overhang 

 the pool, so much the better. Here the Goliaths of 

 the waters keep watch and ward, just at the termination 

 of the strong parts of the current, or in the eddies at 

 the side, for what fortune and the waters may bring 

 them. But when the waters are at all flooded, the 

 trout will be found to have left their usual haunts and 

 dispersed themselves generally over the shallower parts 

 of the river, roaming in search of prey. They will be 

 often found in the most unlikely shallows and out-of 

 the-way places near the banks, where a fish larger than 

 a minnow fry is never seen in the ordinary state of the 

 water. It will therefore be necessary at such times to 

 try every inch of water where a trout can swim 

 particularly the eddies and shallows at the sides of 

 streams ; the broad shallows between the streams, where 

 large trout often lie in a flood, secure from the violence 



