arge trout, and at the same time a delicate compliment to their
wariness. All Thames trout are wary, and it is probably their
outrageous artfulness which adds to the rapture of circumventing them.
Old Nottingham George would tell many a tale of cunning trout which had
been angled for so often and pricked so many times that they were
supposed to have become as learned in the matter of fishermen and
fishing tackle as humanity itself. The reader may not have read, or,
reading, may have forgotten, that the principles of the Thames Angling
Preservation Society were very early applied to Boveney Weir, for it is
written that William, the son of Richard de Windsor, in the first year
of the thirteenth century, gave a couple of marks to the king, in order
that the pool and fishery might be maintained in no worse a condition
than it used to be under the reign of Henry II.

Spinning for Thames trout, which is undoubtedly the most legitimate way
of treating them, seeing that they so little appreciate the beauties of
an artificial fly, is an art that requires perhaps more patience than
skill. Your bleak, dace, gudgeon, minnow, or phantom, in point of
fact, humoured fairly into the stream, does its own work; but anyone
who watches the old-timers at such weirs as Eton or Boveney must
perceive that there are many degrees of such science as the catching of
a Thames trout demands. No doubt it is delightful to sit on a
weir-head, reading your favourite author, while the rod is conveniently
placed to give early notice of a run. It is delightful, but it is not
angling. The most dunder-headed trout of the pool, at sight of a
silvery bait racing apparently for dear life half out of water, yet
never advancing, must metaphorically place its forefinger along its
snout, and with a leery wink sheer off into the deep.

The majority of anglers seem too readily satisfied when their bait
spins, whereas their chief aim should be to produce a movement as true
to nature as possible, They spin too fast by half, not sufficiently
calculating the varying force of the streams, and I am convinced that
one of the most common faults of Thames spinners for trout and pike is
working too near the surface. "Spin as deep as the character of the
water will allow you" will be found in the long run a wholesome rule to
follow, and, rather than keep on spinning in the same water, it will
pay the angler to cease fishing for half an hour and begin anew with a
bait as