CHAPTEE VIIL 



WOKM-FISHING. 



Difficulty of Worm-Fishing Insensibility to Pain of the Lower 

 Animals Different Kinds of Worms How to procure them 

 Scouring of Worms Preservation of Worms over Winter Rod 

 and Tackle. 



OF all the lures in the list of the angler, there is 

 none so universally used as the worm. Being the 

 natural food of most fresh-water fish, it will in skilful 

 hands seldom fail to maintain its high character as an 

 angling bait. But the reader need not suppose that any 

 schoolboy strong enough to wield a willow wand is 

 sufficiently accomplished to be a worm-fisher, as some 

 of our brethren of the fly, who have never tried it, would 

 have us believe. There is no greater mistake. Worm- 

 fishing is, as an art, indeed very difficult to pursue in a 

 proper and successful manner. To fish with worm, and to 

 kill with worm, are two totally different matters : and I 

 have observed in my experience, that there are fewer 

 adepts in this branch of angling than perhaps in any other. 

 No doubt it may seem an easy matter to impale a 

 poor luckless worm, cast it into the water, and wait 

 patiently for chance to guide it into the open jaws of 

 some hungry fish ! But to do this in all varieties of 

 water and weather in still deeps as well as in running 



