place; then stick the spike of your rod in the ground; with the rod a little on the bend; crawl slily up as quick as possible, and put your hands under him, and not too forward, as a trout thus situated is apt to slip back; so that handling him in this way must be rather a different touch from that of weed-groping. If you use a landing net (which for saving time, and particularly where the banks are steep, is sometimes a necessary appendage), let it be as light as possible; very long in the handle; and three times as large as what people generally carry. Take care that neither that, nor the man who may assist you with it, goes even in sight of the water till the fish is brought well to the surface, and fairly within reach; and then you have only to put the net under him, or keep his eyes above water, and tow him into it. Mind this; or the landing net and your man will prove enemies, instead of assistants to your sport. Nothing will so soon, or suddenly, rouse a sick fish as the sight of a man or a landing net. With regard to the time and weather for fishing, it is now well known to almost every schoolboy. But it may be proper just to observe, that however favourable the time may be to all appearance, yet trout will seldom rise well just before rain, or when they have been filled by a glut of flies. Moreover, trout will frequently cease to rise well, even at the best of times, from being every day whipped at, by anglers, from the same bank. My plan, in this case, is to go to the opposite side, and throw against (or rather under) the wind. A friend and I by this means once caught two and twenty brace, and all very large trout, while a tribe of professed anglers, who were fishing from the

windward side, caught (as we afterwards heard) but three fish among their whole party.

TROLLING, or spinning a minnow, is the other most general mode of trout fishing; or, I may almost say, trout poaching. It is, however, very rarely done in a proper manner; though every man, as a matter of course, upholds his own system. I, like all the rest, did the same, till after fancying, for years, that I could challenge any one, was beat and laughed at by a trout-killing divine. At last, however, I not only got master of his plan, against which all others that I had ever seen, read of, or heard of, had no chance whatever; but remedied a few trifling defects that it had, and put the late Chevalier in possession of the improvement. Now I have given it to Mr. Bowness, his successor. The great advantage of it is, that it takes the trout when they run and bite short by means of fly-hooks, that play round the other, on a separate branch of line; so that I have often killed three or four brace of trout, without the minnow being in the least injured, or even touched by the fish. To describe the tackle properly, without giving a plate of it, would be difficult, if not impossible. After all, however, knowing how to bait the hook is the chief art; and even after being shown, requires practice on the part of the fisherman who adopts it. Supposing, however, that some angler might have confidence enough in what I have said to get a set of this tackle from Bowness or from Burnett of Southampton, to whom I have also given and explained it—I will endeavour (having now a minnow in my hand) to direct him as to baiting it. After choosing a white

bellied minnow, of rather small size, and hardening it in bran for an hour or two, first draw back the plummet, and put the large hook into the minnow's mouth, and out through the right gill, taking care not to tear the mouth or any part of the bait: draw the line three or four inches to you, so as to be able to get the hook back again into its mouth. Take the minnow between the finger and thumb in the left hand, and the large hook in the right hand, and run the hook all down its back, close to the bone, to the very end of the fish, and let it come out about the centre of the tail fin. Then with your right hand pull the minnow out as straight as it will lie, and press it into natural form with the finger and thumb. Afterwards nip off the upper half of the tail fin, in order to prevent a counteraction to the spinning of the minnow.

Having done this, draw down your plummet again, and see that your branch-line falls smoothly by the side of your bait-line; and if not, rub it with Indian rubber till it does. Your hook is then ready for action— and action indeed it may be called if properly done. I should observe, that a new gut seldom spins the minnow so well as one that is half worn out (by reason of the stiffness which encircles the minnow's gill). Therefore ten minutes soaking in water, and sometimes a little hard friction of the gut, just above the large hook, may at first be required; besides the working it with India rubber. So much for this plan; there may be many better; but all I can say is, that I have not yet seen one fit to be named with it.

1844. By particular desire," as the players say, I now present my brother anglers with a wood-cut of this tackle, every part of which Varley measured as he drew it. The 1st figure shows the tackle complete, after being measured to the real size (except three feet more gut-line, about the middle of which comes a second swivel; but which cannot be brought into the page).

The 2d, or middle figure, explains how the line becomes shortened-by first putting the large hook into the minnow's mouth, and out at the gill; and then again in at the mouth, and down by the backbone till it comes out at the tail-fin, the lower half of which, as before observed, must be nipped off by the thumb nail, in order to prevent counteraction to the rapid spinning of the minnow.

The 3d figure shows the tackle baited and ready for use; and by this it will be seen that when trout run shy, or bite short, they are taken by the flyhooks.

The rod for trolling should be from eighteen to twenty feet long, and made as light as possible, though neither too pliable nor top-heavy: except just the top and bottom, a minnow rod is best when made of cane. This rod of course requires two hands: no matter therefore where the reel is placed. If the top is too stiff, you strain a fish's mouth so much as to run the risk of breaking out his hold, which is nine times in ten on one of the three small fly-hooks. But, if the top is too pliant, the fish will frequently make his escape on first being pricked. Here, therefore, as in all things, the medium is best. A minnow must of course be thrown underhanded, and the line got well