5 2 NORTH-COUNTRY FLIES. 



CHAPTER IV. 



UP-STREAM WORM FISHING. 



THIS is a very scientific and deadly branch of the angler's 

 art, and we are indebted to the late Mr. Stewart for ele- 

 vating the worm to its position as one of the most killing 

 baits for trout, a bait, too, which in capable hands can be 

 used in weather in which any other method is simply 

 hopeless. A blazing sun, a parched earth, a mere driblet 

 of a river, with water of the very clearest, and the accom- 

 plished up-stream worm fisher has sport before him. It 

 is, however, too generally accepted that such weather and 

 such water are alone suitable for the art. As a matter 

 of fact trout will occasionally take a worm in clear water 

 more or less all the year round, as is very well known to 

 every Yorkshire grayling fisher in December and January. 

 And the up-stream worm fisher may undoubtedly find sport 

 as early as April, if he fishes the proper places, which it is 

 needless to say are not the places which he would fish in 

 July and August. The first time the writer ever fished a 

 worm up-stream in clear water happened to be in the third 

 week in May. A long spell of dry easterly winds had re- 

 duced the rivers to such a condition that fly fishing was 

 impossible, and notwithstanding the very strong opinion 

 of an old fisherman, the writer and his friend, George 

 Paley, essayed to try the worm after a short lesson from 

 the keeper. The result was that with one angler half a 

 mile a-head of the other, fishing up three miles of a York- 



