30 A BOOK ON ANGLING 



noise as possible, he must bait the hook, and swing it out over 

 the hole again, and there let it hang for a few minutes previous 

 to dropping it on the surface, in order that the chub may 

 thoroughly recover their equanimity. When the fish become 

 quite disturbed, the angler should leave the spot, casting in a 

 handful of ground-bait ere he goes. No good will be done 

 by his continuing to fish it, for the chub will not come on the 

 feed again unless left to themselves for an hour or more, when 

 he may come back and renew his attentions with success. 



The best baits for daping are cockchafer, humblebee, grass- 

 hopper, large flies of various kinds, and the young frog. Flies 

 should be hooked on sideways through the thorax, and not 

 from head to tail, and as little line as possible should rest on 

 the water when daping with them. Fishing with the young 

 frog is a very killing method of fishing for chub. The following 

 method I have from Mr. Rolfe, the well-known fish artist, 

 and by this means almost any spot can easily be fished. The 

 worst things one has to contend with in daping are the branches 

 and foliage on the wooded spots where this kind of angling 

 is chiefly followed ;] the difficulty being to get the line and 

 hook out over the water without entangling. To do this, 

 various expedients have been adopted twisting the line 

 round the top of the rod, and then poking it through holes 

 in the bushes over the water, and there untwisting it by turning 

 the rod round like a mop handle the reverse way to the twist. 

 But this is tedious, and not always certain. Mr. Rolfe's plan 

 is far better. Use a long, light, and stiffish rod with upright 

 rings, a very fine soft silk Nottingham line ; have a perch 

 hook on about a foot of fine gut for the line, and a bullet of 

 sufficient weight made fast at the join between the foot of 

 gut and the silk line. Take a small lively frog (you can get 

 any number of them collected by country lads at the right 

 period of the year) . Hook a very little bit of the skin of the 

 frog's back on the bend of the hook (just enough to secure with- 

 out damaging him), as Izaak sayeth, " Treat him as if you loved 

 him/ 1 though it may be a queer method of expressing one's 

 sentiments. Now, having wound all the line up on your reel 

 until the bullet touches the eye of the rod-top, check the line 

 so as to keep it there. You have then but the foot of gut with 

 the hook and frog hanging from the point, and there are very 

 few holes amongst foliage, where you may desire to fish, 

 through which this cannot easily be passed without catching 

 in any twigs. Having passed it through, and the rod-point 



