294 FISHING GOSSIP. 
with that of losing a good trout at the last moment, 
and anglers have various ways of giving vent to their 
pent-up feelings, depending upon their peculiar 
idiosyncrasy. But of all the different means of relief 
there is perhaps none at once so satisfactory and so 
reprehensible as that referred to by a late great 
humorist who, if not an angler, was the friend and 
associate of anglers :— 
“The flask frae my pocket 
I poured into the socket, 
For I was provokit unto the last degree ; 
And to my way o’ thinkin’, 
There’s naething for ’t but drinkin’, 
When a trout he lies winkin’ and lauchin’ at me.” 
Everything, we say, combines to render fly-fishing 
the most attractive of all the branches of the angler’s 
art. The attempt to capture trout which are seen to 
rise at natural flies is in itself an excitement which 
no other method possesses. Then the smallness of 
the hook and the fineness of the tackle necessary for 
success increase the danger of escape, and conse- 
quently the excitement and pleasure of the capture ; 
and for our own part we would rather hook, play, 
and capture a trout of a pound weight with fly than 
one of a pound and half with minnow or worm, where 
the hooks being larger, there is less chance of their 
losing their hold, and the gut being stronger, there is 
less risk of its breaking. Fly-fishing is also the 
