SEASON OF YEAR.

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flood occurs when the flies are all out, it will carry them away, and finish May-fly fishing for the season. The beginning of June is generally the time when this fishing is at its prime; about the middle of the month, or even sooner, the flies get scarce, and the angler must, with great regret, have recourse to something else. For the time it lasts, it is splendid sport. The trout are of large size, and, being in prime condition, run most vigorously, and test to the utmost both the angler's skill and tackle. There are some rivers where the flies are not to be had; and unless there are plenty of stones, they are never found in great numbers; but where they are, trout take them in any size of water, from Tweed to the smallest hill burn.

Cod-bait, maggots, and the larvæ of some other insects, are very much esteemed by some anglers as baits for trout; but for our own part, we have always found a clear red worm more effective. It is also more easily got, and certainly more agreeable to handle.

CHAPTER IX.

MINNOW AND PAR-TAIL FISHING.

THIS is a very inviting branch of the art.

No

method of trout-fishing exercises a more lively influence over the angler's hopes and fears, or requires the exercise of so much presence of mind, as trouting with the minnow or par-tail; a large trout makes a glorious rush at a minnow, and it requires both skill and coolness in order to secure it. Like other methods of angling, minnow-fishing in discoloured water is comparatively easy, and in such circumstances, it is better understood by those who practise it than any other branch of the art; but when the streams are clear, to fish successfully with the minnow, particularly in small waters, requires great dexterity, and is one of the most difficult operations of angling.

One great inducement to use the minnow is the large size of the trout captured. The largest trout taken by the rod are usually caught with it, but the average is not equal in size and still less in condition to those captured with the May-fly. Trout

METHODS OF CAPTURING MINNOWS.

151

accustomed to prey upon their neighbours usually attain great size, and may be more readily taken by the minnow than by any other means; but these overgrown specimens are generally not inviting.

The value of the minnow, however, as a lure for trout, is to some extent lessened by the difficulty of procuring them. In places and circumstances most favourable to their use, it is sometimes impossible to get them, and we have frequently found the capture of minnows much more difficult than the capture of the trout when we had got them; their capture, therefore, becomes an object of primary consideration.

Minnows are not easily caught till April, as it is not till the streams are in some measure reduced that they venture out from under the banks and other places where they have sheltered themselves from the torrents of winter. In most of the streams in the south of Scotland they are to be found in abundance from April to November. They frequent the thin edges of pools, and every place where a turn of the river leaves a corner, or as it is called "back water," where they can swim unmolested; and in a sunny day such places may be seen almost black with them.

A great many different contrivances are employed to capture them. The small pout or landing-net may be used very effectively during the time of a flood, and it should be worked with the current about the edges of places which the minnows are known to frequent, and in back water. It may also be em

ployed when a shoal of minnows is found in some detached piece of water; in which case the mud should be stirred up before commencing, when they may be captured with great ease.

When a shoal of minnows is in a corner they may be captured without much difficulty. The small hoop net will secure a good many, but a much more efficient plan is to have a net tied between two sticks, about two feet separate, with the lower end of the net leaded. This is wrought quickly up into the corner, and as lies close to the bottom very few minnows escape. By this means as many minnows may be taken at a single haul as will last a week. This is the only kind of net we carry with us when angling, as it goes into little bulk, and a couple of sticks with which to use it can be picked up at the water side.

it

For

The great difficulty, however, lies in catching minnows when they are in the open stream. this purpose we use an oblong net, about two yards wide and as many long. This should be attached to two sticks, with the lower side of the net leaded, and a few corks put on the upper side so as to get as much opening as possible. The angler should then place it at the side of some stream where the minnows are, and chase them into it. This is the most reliable of all the methods of capturing minnows. A net of the size just mentioned, with the mesh sufficiently small, would cost several pounds; but a piece of light canvas, which will do equally

well, and of which we make all our nets, may be got from any seedsman for a mere trifle.

When minnows are intended to be used immediately, they may be captured with a small hook. The best way of doing this is to take a hook, and attach to its shank three or four small pieces of gut, with a pair of small hooks, say No. 11, attached to each, which should hang from an inch to an inch and a half below the single hook. This latter is then baited with a small piece of a red worm, and when the minnows are clustered about it, it is pulled out with a jerk; and the angler will generally get two or three minnows hooked by the outside of the body. The object of this is to get small minnows, as the bait is usually seized by the large ones, to the exclusion of those which the angler wishes to capture.

Those anglers who have the command of a piece of water can always keep a supply of live minnows by enclosing them in a wire box, which should be sunk to the bottom of the water by a weight, and raised when the minnows are wanted. But as numbers of anglers do not reside at the water side, and when engaged in a day's trouting cannot afford to spend half of it in catching minnows, they should always be provided with a plentiful supply of salted ones, which will be found much more deadly than the best imitations that were ever made. As minnows shrivel up considerably when salted, a size larger should be selected for this purpose than those