What Mr. Stewart says on
this point should be read by every tyro. By fishing up-stream, even
against the wind, he will on an average kill twice as many trout as
when fishing down. If trout are out and feeding on the shallows, up
or down will simply make the difference of fish or no fish; and even
in deeps, where the difference in the chance of not being seen is not
so great, many more fish will be hooked by the man who fishes up-
stream, simply because when he strikes he pulls the hook into the
trout's mouth instead of out of it. But he who would obey Mr.
Stewart in fishing up-stream must obey him also in discarding his
light London rod, which is in three cases out of four as weak and
'floppy' in the middle as a waggon whip, and get to himself a stiff
and powerful rod, strong enough to spin a minnow; whereby he will
obtain, after some weeks of aching muscles, two good things--a fore-
arm fit for a sculptor's model, and trout hooked and killed, instead
of pricked and lost.
Killed, as well as hooked; for how large trout are to be killed in a
weedy chalk-stream without a stiff rod which will take them down, is
a question yet unsolved.
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