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HANDBOOK OF ANGLING.

CHAPTER I.

ANGLING DEFINED.- DIVIDED INTO THREE BRANCHES.BRIEFLY DESCRIBED. - THE SUPERIORITY AND

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MERITS OF FLY-FISHING.

ANGLING,the art of taking fish with rod, line, and hook, or with line and hook only, -is one of the oldest of out-door amusements and occupations in every country. At first the modes of practising it were exceedingly rude, and they still remain so amongst uncivilised nations. There are tribes in existence that now, as heretofore, fashion the human jaw-bones into fish-hooks. Even unto this day angling implements, amongst many of the politest people of Europe, their amusements, unfortunately for themselves, being chiefly in-door ones, are manufactured with imperfect roughness. The inhabitants of the British isles alone, with their colonial descendants, cultivate

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ENGLISH SPORTSMEN.

all matters pertaining to rural sports, of whatsoever kind they may be, but particularly hunting, shooting, and angling, with that persevering ardour, comprising active practice and passionate study, which leads to perfection. In their efforts to acquire the surest, most amusing, most healthgiving, and, I may say, most elegant modes of pursuing and capturing their game, be it the produce of field or flood, they call to their aid several ancillary studies, amongst which stands prominent one of the pleasantest of all, viz. that of the natural history of animals and of other living things, ranking not so high in the scale of creation. The hunter studies the habits of horse and dog, and of the feræ naturæ he pursues with them, the fowler of the birds of the air, and the fisherman of the fish of the water. The general sportsman, a practical naturalist, if I may use the epithet, studies the habits of all. Hence knowledge, skill, and success; hence the accomplished sportsman, rarely found except amongst the best types of Englishmen, whether of high or low degree.

Though angling has been jeered at more than any other sporting practice, still no other subject connected with field sports has been more minutely and extensively written upon. No sporting writer is so generally known as Izaak Walton, and his "Complete Angler" has earned for him an im

ANGLING DIVIDED.

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mortality which will last until the art of printing our language shall be forgotten. Angling, then, cannot be a subject unworthy of a modern pen;. but the pen perchance may be unworthy of it, and so cause me to fail in my design, which is to write upon angling in a plain, connected, businesslike way, teaching its modern theory and practice, together with the useful discoveries, inventions, and improvements that have been recently made in relation to it.

The art of angling is divided into three main branches, the general principles of which being understood, an acquaintance with minute detail will follow gradually as a matter of course.

The first branch embraces angling at the surface of the water, and comprehends fly-fishing with natural or artificial insects, the latter being of more general use. The second embraces angling at mid-water, or thereabouts, and includes trolling or spinning with a live, a dead, or an artificial bait—with a small fish generally, or its representative. The third includes bottomfishing, that is, angling at or near the bottom of the water with worms, gentles, and many sorts of inanimate baits. Bottom-fishing is the most primitive, the commonest, and easiest mode of angling, the first learnt and the last forgot; trolling is less common and more difficult; fly-fishing is the most difficult and amusing of all, and though

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