HOW TO DEAL WITH WEEDS 123 



of the heavy drag given to the fly in the forward motion. To 

 provide against mischances of this nature, it is as well to carry 

 a coil of stoutish cord in the pocket or basket ; this takes up 

 little or no room, and by tying a stone on to one end of it and 

 throwing over the offending branch, and then twisting the 

 depending stone round and round the length held in the hand, 

 the bough may generally be pulled down or even broken off. 

 Some anglers carry one of those little hook-shaped knives 

 which have a barbed gaff hook on the reverse side, and which 

 can be screwed into the butt of the landing-handle. These are 

 useful in cutting free a weed or twig which may be within 

 reach ; but it often happens that the handle is not long enough 

 to reach high up into a tree, and therefore the coil of cord is 

 to my mind preferable at any rate it is a useful adjunct. 



When the angler hooks a fish in a very weedy place, the best 

 policy is a bold one. Let him at once, before the fish is aware 

 of what has happened to him, put on a heavy drag, and pull 

 him through or over the weeds into safe water. I assure the 

 angler that this is much easier and safer than it either sounds 

 or looks. It is one thing for the angler to take a fish through 

 weeds, but quite another thing for the fish to take himself 

 through them. In the one case he does not see where he is 

 going and yields to the impulse, while his fins offer no resistance ; 

 in the other, these circumstances are reversed, and he holds 

 the weeds by his outspread fins and often also by his mouth. 

 This last season I was frequently obliged to exert my per- 

 suasive powers in this respect, as I was fishing a good deal in a 

 very weedy river ; and one day, to the great astonishment of 

 the keeper, I hauled four fish, one after the other, out of very 

 dangerous holes through heavy weeds into safe water, and 

 landed them ; three of them weighed one pound and three- 

 quarters each, and the fourth two pounds. " Never see any- 

 one so lucky as you be, sir, wi' big fish, don't seem to care 

 'bout the weeds, not a mossel," said the keeper ; and certainly 

 some of the places were as nasty-looking places to hook a 

 good fish in as anyone could desire to see ; but prompt mea- 

 sures succeeded where a timid and hesitating hand on the rod 

 would have been sure, sooner or later, to have ended in the 

 fish bolting into a weed of his own accord. Should a fish run up 

 under a weed, in his efforts to escape, it is manifest, if the angler 

 pulls against the stream and the lay of the weed, or even en- 

 deavours to pull the fish up through the weed, or sideways 

 out of it, that he will fail. The only way to extricate such a 



