SNOW-BROTH, CROGGIL, AND TURN HOLES

PROPER TIMES TO ANGLE.

Fish bite well in close warm gloomy weather, or during soft mizzling rain, or when the dew is strong. They are often very eager in small rivers and brooks, after a shower that has a little raised and discoloured the water : on a gloomy day, after a light night, and with a little wind, the best fish will feed: they also rise and bite well in rivers a little below the place where sheep are being washed. Trout bite well when the water is rising, or when it is clearing after a flood. When there is a flood, and the water keeps up some days, and is not very thick, while it is sinking within the banks, angle near the ends of bridges, and in shallow still places, where the fish then lie, or in the turnholes and back current of streams : at such times and places, the author has often taken fine fish with the artificial fly, and also where the froth lies, spots very few would think of trying wit the fly.

 

IMPROPER TIMES TO ANGLE.

It is of little use to angle with the long line under a scorching sun, in the middle of the day, during the summer months. It is almost always bad angling in a cold east or north wind, especially in the spring or fall of the year. It is never good fishing when " snow-broth" is in the rivers.

Large fish will rarely or never feed the day after a dark or a windy night; for in those nights they glut themselves, and will not soon feed afterwards. It is of little use fishing in very long droughts, when the rivers are very low, the water dead, and full of fine green weed, vulgarly called « croggil," which adheres to the knots of the lash, clogs the hooks, and covers the flies, so that no fish can take them, and is quite troublesome to the angler. It is commonly bad fishing whilst the mill next above you stands still, and there is no stream running. It is of little use, in most instances, to fish with the fly, when the wind is very high; chub, roach, and dace never rise when there are great waves on the water.