PREFACE. 



There are tliousands of people who love a day's 

 fishing, hut who have neither the time nor the incli- 

 nation to make a profound study of the gentle craft. 

 They are often dispirited and disappointed at their 

 want of success. They have sighed for a comprehen- 

 sive, practical, yet handy manual, which is neither 

 too large for the pocket, nor too brief to be useful. 



Perhaps no out-door sport has so large or so fine a 

 literature as angling. So full and exhaustive are the 

 various treatises, that it appears presumptuous to 

 place another volume on the already loaded shelves 

 of the fisherman's library. If anglers all belonged to 

 the rich and leisurely grades of society, I should cer- 

 tainly not have expanded my rough fishing notes 

 into a book. 



Though I have embodied my own experiences into 

 these pages, I have not overlooked the advice of my 

 brother anglers, when I found on trial that their plans 

 were more simple, or, practically, more useful than 

 my own. The most striking instance of this being the 



