WEEDS AND WEED-CUTTING 353 



course if they are very thick and abnormally high it 

 may be absolutely necessary to trim them in places, 

 but nothing tends more to render the fish shy than 

 the absence of rushes, and conversely they are most 

 useful in making a hide for the fisherman when stalk- 

 ing his fish. 



The weeds in a fishery having been once cut on 

 the side and bar system will 

 Trimming the weeds, require very little further atten- 

 tion during the season. From 

 day to day the keeper should walk along with his 

 hand-scythe and trim away here and there weeds 

 where they are growing too luxuriantly, and he should, 

 as before remarked, invariably cut out the old growths 

 and leave the young weeds uncut. This daily work 

 should be carried out quite early in the morning, and 

 long before the angler appears on the scene the 

 keeper should have taken out his few cut weeds and 

 laid them on the bank. If in a deep stretch the 

 growth of the weeds in the centre of the stream 

 should have become too dense, he and an assistant 

 can draw the chain-scythes down fairly quickly and 

 only take the tops off the weeds. This, again, if 

 carried out in the small hours, will in no way incon- 

 venience the fisherman. The notion that weed-cutting 

 puts trout off the feed or makes them shy is only true 

 to the extent that for perhaps an hour after cutting 

 the weeds they will not be seen in position, but they 

 may and at times do rise well a few minutes after the 

 chain-scythes have been passed over them. 

 2 A 



