42 NORTH-COUNTRY FLIES. 



look for sport much before midnight. You will find waders 

 very useful, but there is no necessity to wade ; you can fish 

 with one foot on the bank and one in the water ; things are 

 by no means promising for this kind of fishing if you are 

 compelled to seek the fish. When you are ready, fish the 

 edges close to the shore, particularly where a ripple or an 

 eddy breaks ; cast carefully under trees or banks, or any 

 other likely hold, but the majority of your fish will come 

 from near the shore at the edges of the streams. When a 

 trout takes the bustard, he does it peculiarly, he makes 

 no sound and he gives no tug ; the only intimation you have 

 that something has happened is a feeling as if some one 

 had suddenly hung a half-pound weight on your line. 

 Strike then instantly. By far the best fishing with this lure, 

 and it is perhaps worthier of the angler's art, is had between 

 dawn and sunrise in the roughish streams and rapids ; then, 

 of course, you must wade. Trout often rise ravenously at 

 the moth in the very early morning, but the game is up at 

 the same moment as the sun. 



Minnow-fishing for trout is divided into two branches, in 

 both of which the minnow is made to spin in the water. In 

 one case it is used when the river is clearing after a flood, 

 and in the other in clear water on bright days. Both are 

 very deadly modes of angling, and the latter requires an 

 amount of skill and judgment unsurpassed by any other 

 branch of the fisherman's art. It is not proposed to do 

 more than offer some general remarks upon the subject, 

 because no amount of writing will teach a reader more than 

 the mere rudiments of a practice which requires patience 

 and observation at the river-side itself. In fishing a minnow 

 in discoloured water, the difficulty is not great, but in clear 

 water fishing you must serve a considerable apprenticeship 

 to the business before you can hope for much success. 



The most important essential in a minnow-fisher's outfit 



