54 NORTH-COUNTRY FLIES. 



the right size and quality, and be fresh, and still sufficiently 

 tough to stand throwing. A trout will always prefer a 

 worm which is perfectly fresh from the earth, if you give 

 him his choice of half-a-dozen, but, unfortunately, the finest 

 angler cannot throw a very tender worm up-stream with 

 any satisfaction to himself, as it must invariably break and 

 become useless after a few casts. The first thing to be 

 considered is the size and the kind of worm best suited to 

 the angler's purpose. And here it may not be out of place 

 to state a fact unknown to many fishermen, that in small 

 streams a green worm, usually contemptuously discarded by 

 the worm-picker, will any time kill more trout than a red 

 one. The green worm is not to be recommended for large 

 rivers, or even those of moderate volume, but in tributary 

 becks and the upper parts of rivers you may safely leave 

 the red worms in favour of the green ones. The worms 

 best suited for fishing in the majority of Yorkshire rivers 

 are the small dark-blue headed worms which have not bred. 

 Brandlings are always good, but they are very tender and 

 cannot well be toughened. A period of two days is suf- 

 ficiently long to toughen a worm for all practical purposes, 

 and at the end of that time he has not lost much of his 

 vitality, and is, to the eye of a trout, no doubt a fairly fresh 

 worm. Shun all preparations of flax for toughening, as 

 they rob the worm not only of its vitality but its gloss. 

 There is no need to keep a worm for a week, and though 

 such a worm will kill, even if kept for very much longer 

 periods, a bright, lively worm is at all times much more 

 likely to tickle the cupidity of a trout. 



The quickest and simplest way of preparing worms for 

 the angler is to wash them in a little clean cold water 

 for about three minutes, immediately after taking them from 

 the ground ; then put some dry moss in an earthenware pot, 

 with some coarse wet sacking lying on the moss. Put the 



