THE DACE. 99 



was made by " daping " a grasshopper from behind 

 the shelter of trees close to the water's 



J 1^1 11 r Fishing 



edge, i he stream was only about two feet with 

 in depth, clear and swift; by keeping grass- 

 well concealed, and letting an impaled 

 grasshopper float down stream, a friend of mine had 

 a magnificent lot of dace during a summer's morn- 

 ing, over thirty fish, many of them over half-a- 

 pound in weight. Both dace and roach were well 

 on the feed that morning; my luck took me 

 amongst the big roach ; and, strange to say, I also 

 secured thirty fish. The following day, I made a 

 fine basket of dace with the artificial fly, although 

 in those days I had no knowledge of "dry-fly." 

 Whatever may be said to the contrary, the wet as 

 well as the dry fly will kill fish, dace or trout ; and 

 the staunch advocates of either system will find a 

 change to one or the other occasionally prove more 

 effective than always sticking to one unvaried 

 method. 



Fly-fishing for dace is to me simply fascinating. 

 I have had good sport at Richmond at low piy- 

 tide, but have not fished there since the fishing 

 lock below Teddington was opened ; so things may 

 have changed, either for better or worse. I used to 

 wade out between the deep ballast-holes at low 

 tide, and once nearly got into a serious mess. 

 Wading out when it was nearly dusk on a narrow 

 spit of gravel, and being intent on my sport, I did 

 not notice how quickly the darkness gathered, or 

 that the tide had commenced' to rise too high for 

 my comfort. When I made a move, I could not 

 retrace my steps quickly, as in the darkness I could 

 not see where to place my feet in the thickened 

 water ; every other step I took might have landed 



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