320 SALMON AND TROUT. 
‘ 
daintiness of my favourite sport, I couid easily—especially in a 
bright low water—increase my take of fish by ‘ pointing’ my 
fly hook. An ant’s egg serves the purpose well, being both 
cleaner and lighter than a gentle. 
I remember early on a July morning mentioning this to a 
friend who was driving me over to Leintwardine. W had 
little hope of sport ; the river was low, the fish shy; the gray- 
ling especially, he told me, were sulking in shoals at the bottom 
of the deep pools. ‘Were it not for your club rules,’ said I, 
‘which you tell me are so very strict, you might pick out a few 
of those fellows by pointing your fly hook with an ant’s egg.’ 
He replied that it was not to be heard of, yet methought was 
rather curious as to the forbidden process. 
We parted shortly after at the water-side, and before we met 
again in the afternoon I had a grand basket of trout. The 
river was so low that every stake showed ; the fish came strong 
on the feed, and behind every stake I could see the suck of a 
goodly snout, so that a long cast up stream with my two-handed 
rod was absolutely murderous. W. had done very little with 
the trout, not having fished so ‘ fine’ or so ‘far off,’ and having 
been unlucky in his choice of water. But there were two or 
three really handsome grayling in his basket, against which I 
had nothing to show. I had killed the only one of decent size 
which I had seen rise during the day, and even he was no great 
things. Could it really have been mea maxima culpa that I had 
taken no fish like those before me? W-—— answered my 
questions as to the fly he had used with an admirable steadi- 
ness of countenance ; but when ‘still I gazed, and still my 
wonder grew,’ he could stand it no longer, and burst into that 
cheery ringing laugh which his many friends round the Clee 
will recall so well and so regretfully. It was impossible not to 
join chorus as he just articulated, ‘ Ants’ eggs.’ 
The gentle, used by itself on a very small hook and thrown 
like the fly, is very killing, especially after Christmas, when 
breeding time draws near, and the grayling grow sluggish and 
dainty. The worm will kill through autumn and winter, and is 
