[ ^^'8 ] 



CHAPTER II. 



Science required for trout-fishing — Daping — Striking a fish — Striking 

 from the reel — Fish quickly hooked insensible to pain — Foul- 

 hooked — Lost and found — Sport of fly-fishing — •Too early fishing 

 — Greediness of trout^ — ^Fishing in weedy rivers — Trout gut, and 

 where to get it — Use of two flies — Size of flies — Tackle for brook- 

 fishing — Troubles of a beginner — Too heavy a line — Home-made 

 flies — Bad hooks — A distressful day — Care necessary as regards 

 perfection of tackle — Drying lines after fishing — Losing a reel — 

 A frayed line — A lucky catch — A cut finger — A caught fish — ' If 

 you want a thing done ' — The ' Mare's Pool '—A warrantable deer 

 — Raining trout — Good and bad flies — An Irishman's reason — 

 Salmon flies — The May fly — Trout flies — Natural v. artificial — The 

 late Francis Francis — Wet and dry fly-fishing — Shotting a cast — 

 Plenty of line necessary — An anecdote — ^Floating reels — Anecdote 

 of the late Mr. John Bright — The Groam Pool — Anecdote of Mr. 

 John Bright continued— The inventor and his waders — ^Flood 

 water and a ' silver doctor ' — Deterioration of sport in fishing — Brass 

 minnows — Baiting a pool — Eels in the Beauly — Migration of Eels 

 — Eels as food — Lord Lovat's net, or 'caught with a cobweb.' 



It is easy enough to learn to catch and kill a salmon, 

 but trout-fishing demands a skill and science all its 

 own, and both skill and patience are sorely tested. 

 Many a time I have led myself to believe that I was 

 going to succeed in capturing some well-known monster 

 trout. I am free to confess that, although I have 

 often succeeded in rising and even hooking such local 

 characters, I have but rarely ever killed one with an 

 artificial fly. The skill required to catch the ordinary < 

 brook-trout is by no means inconsiderable, but it takesi 



