UP-STREAM WORM FISHING. 53 



shire river, we pulled up at noon, with thirty-one trout, all 

 but equally divided. A couple of old hands would doubtless 

 have done better. As usual when we got back, the 

 doubter " would not have believed it, and never knew it 

 done before," &c. Why should a trout which will take a 

 worm at Christmas and in June, July, and August, and, 

 indeed, at any time in a flood, refuse to take one at any 

 other season ? Depend upon it, if you know the places where 

 the trout are lying at the different seasons a matter which 

 was gone into in the introductory chapter and you fish the 

 worm in those places, it will not infrequently be taken. It 

 is, of course, no use whatever trying it in the thins in April* 

 but if you let it come trundling down the neck of a stream, 

 or let it be swept along in an eddy, just as you would fish a 

 creeper, it will kill ; though not always, because the bait has 

 not yet been discovered which will do that. The facts are, 

 that as with creeper fishing, up-stream worm fishing in the 

 spring has not hitherto had the attention in Yorkshire 

 which it deserves, for two reasons, first, perhaps, because 

 fly-fishing is commonly preferred, and second, because 

 under a mistaken estimate of the science required to be- 

 come an up-stream worm fisher it has been looked upon 

 as unworthy of notice. But, as every spring angler knows, 

 there are often weeks of easterly winds in which fly-fishing 

 is utterly useless. Then should the worm fisher step in, 

 and he will probably find sport in our rapid and shallow 

 rivers, and he will find also that he has acquired a knowledge 

 of a new branch of angling which will help him to fill his 

 creel sometimes in weather during which any other lure 

 except a minnow or a creeper would be quite worthless. 



As in all up-stream fishing, wading is of course essential, 

 half the worm-fisher's art being in keeping behind, and being 

 therefore unseen by the fish. As to your worms a very 

 important point in two or three respects they must be of 



