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THE LANDING-NET 109 



the prescribed distance and disappeared. Again 

 the tactics of the loosened Hne, again the hooked 

 fish rushed out from his almost impregnable holt 

 into the open, and was presently netted out by 

 the triumphant angler — a handsome and, he 

 thinks, a not ill-deserved three pounds ten ounces. 

 A week later the same tactics produced another fish 

 of two pounds eleven ounces from the same hole. 



OF THE USE OF THE LANDING-NET. 



There is a common superstition among anglers 

 that the primary use of a landing-net is to land 

 fish. Let us rather say that the use of a landing- 

 net, rightly understood, is to assist in the capture 

 of fish. Not to catch fish, for the catching of fish 

 in the landing-net is mere poacher's work, but to 

 aid in the catching. Some anglers tell you you 

 must never show your net to a fish until ready 

 for netting. But why not, if it will help you to 

 kill him ? There are many more or less desperate 

 cases where the net may be of the profoundest 

 service long before it is called to operate at the 

 final ceremony of dipping out. I will give one or 

 two examples in an ascending scale of complexity. 



Firstfy, a new use for the handle. Under the 

 left bank of a South-Country chalk stream a trout 

 is taking every dun that goes down alongside the 

 cluster of cut weed under which he shelters. 

 The angler's Gold-ribbed Hare's Ear fighting deli- 

 cately a foot above, with the gut resting on the 



