186 A BOOK ON ANGLING 



I have read this advice I fancy it is Stoddart's but it is good 

 advice).* If, however, the weather be rough, you will be com- 

 pelled to fish the leeward shores. Avoid the places where the 

 rocks are precipitous and the shores steep, and choose the little 

 sandy bays and pebbly strands ; fish the edges of weeds or 

 reeds very carefully they are favourite harbours for the best 

 fish. Wherever you see little islets of rocks or cairns, by no 

 means pass them without a trial. If trees border the loch, 

 under them will be found the scaly prey waiting for whatever 

 heaven or the wind may send them by shaking the leaves. 

 Where streams and rivulets enter the lake, you should be 

 particularly sedulous in your attentions, as here you will be 

 sure to find sport of the best. If, when in a boat, you hook a 

 good fish, remember that the first thing he will inevitably do is 

 to dart off the shallow into the deeper water ; take care that in 

 doing so he does not dart under the boat, as not unfrequently 

 happens. Nothing is so absurd as to see a stalwart angler with 

 his rod perfectly upright and the fish gone under his feet. You 

 have not the least power over a fish that has served you so ; and 

 if the boat be, as the boat of the Celt too often is, ragged as to 

 her bottom, with rusty nails, a broken sheathing, etc., your 

 line will probably be cut, or if only hung up, what with poking 

 it clear and other expedients, the line will be so frayed as to be 

 useless. If the boat does not catch it something else may, and 

 probably when you get all clear again you will find that the 

 errant fish has left your stretcher, and possibly the dropper too, 

 fast in a lump of tough mossy weed fathoms below, and is him- 

 self ' ' Liber et exultans ardet piscis in aquis. ' ' Always contrive, 

 if possible, to keep the fish under the point of the rod, and 

 never, as far as it can possibly be avoided, under the butt. The 

 rod must be nearly upright when the fish is gaffed or netted, 

 but that is the only time when it should be so. Take care, too, 

 when the fish is gaffed or netted and dropped into the boat, to 

 loosen your line or drop the point or the sudden call on the 

 top may snap it. Knock the fish on the head at once 

 for many reasons, and waste no time in admiration, for 

 when they are " in the humour " is the time to " take 

 them." 



In lake-fishing I have found the greatest advantage at times 



in making the drop fly skim and dib along the surface of the 



water as it comes towards you. This you cannot well manage 



on a stream, but on a lake in still water it will often be found 



* It is in chapter iv of Stoddart's Angler's Companion. ED. 



