How to Fish - A Treatise on Trout and Trout-Fishers

HOW TO FISH A TREATISE ON TROUT TROUT-FISHERS W. EARL HODGSON AUTHOR OF TROUT FISHING AhD SALMON FISHING WITH EIGHT FULL-PAGE lLLUSTRATIONS PROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND EIGHTEEN SMAUER ENGRAVINGS IN THE TEXT TO THOMAS J. BARRATT, ESQ., D.L. IN BRIGHT REMEMBRANCE OF THREE SEASONS ON A HAMPSHIRE STREAM PREFATORY NOTE MADAM BLACK, whom I met in the Highlands last August, then told me that Trout Fishing left a widespread want unsatisfied. In all parts of the country the travelling representative of his rm, Mr. Cannon, found that the book, though generously received when first published, in 1904, and still in demand, met the case of those only who already knew a good deal about the subject. ere was he himself, Mr. Black, on his way to Loch Tay, to try for a trout the book had not taught him all he needed to know An exhaustive treatise was required and it should be ready for issue in Spring. This was a shocking speech but gradually, as I thought it over, wrath dissolved before a perception that it was not unreasonable. Any one who discourses on a subject with which he is familiar was certainly apt, I realised, to assume that the prospective readers knew much more than they did know. That oversight, apparently, played its negative part in Trout Fishing. Yes I would write the exhaustive treatise. Here it is. A few theories which I have had the honour of stating in articles contributed to periodicals, including The Times, The Nineteenth Century, The National Review, and The Monthly Review, are, with perrnissions, presented in it but, of course, they are presented in fresh words, in their natural relations, and modiJed by such criticisms as were unmistakably true. The sum-total of the theories mentioned is a very small part of the volume, which I have sought to make conlpletely comprehensive. Next time the Publisher returns from trout- fishing with his spirits less light than his creel, he will have himself, not me, to blame. CHAPTER I THE TROUT Early in the Year-Where are they -From South to North -A Yorkshire Belief-Another Surmise-A Well-in- formed Gipsy-Fish that are in condition all the Year -The Pools become Alive-Gregarious Habits-Daily Movements-In Gentle Flood-Mysterious Disappear- ance-Eddies-Slack Water-A Singular Pool-Strange Uniformity of Size-In Indian File- Rising Short - The Explanation-In Raging Flood. . IN the South of England, as White of Selborne noticed, trout begin to rise shortly after the middle of March. This implies that they have returned to the places in which they were during the summer before. In autumn, when running up the waters to the spawning-grounds, they would take worms greedily, if these were offered, and would even rise at flies, real or artificial but, as any honest poacher could vouch, they do not rise freely at flies, or bite eagerly at more substantial baits, when on the way back to the places which they occupy in spring and summer. Indeed, their habits for four or five months after spawning are mysterious...