70 FISHING GOSSIP. 
so devoutly to be wished is as follows :—The position 
must be carefully reconnoitred from the opposite 
bank, or nearest point of vantage, and the most eli- 
gible spot for dropping a fly before the trout’s nose 
carefully selected. If there should be no suitable 
opening for the rod, one can be made by a bill-hook, 
and another lower down to admit the protrusion of a 
landing-net may also be not disadvantageous; and 
lest the fish should be unnecessarily alarmed, the 
openings may be made the day previous to that of 
action. A short stout rod and line are used for this 
purpose ; and the line, to avoid any obstruction or 
entanglement, should be lightly wound round the top 
of the rod. With the stealthy silence of a mole the 
point of the rod is pushed out through the open- 
ing, exactly over the trout’s haunt, the line is gently 
unwound by turning the rod in the reverse manner to 
that in which it was wound on, and the fly suffered to 
light on the surface of the water as softly as the hand 
of a sacrilegious thief might glide into the pocket of 
a Lord Mayor. If the operator from his position can- 
not see the water, a person on the opposite bank, in 
view of the spot, can guide every movement by waving 
his hand either to the right or left, up or down, as 
these signals may have previously been agreed upon. 
The result is almost a certainty, the trout being 
speedily transformed into that form of flesh known 
in the United States as a gone coon. No delicacy 
