Fishing with the Natural Fly.—­The natural fly is a very killing bait for trout, but its use is not wide-spread except in Ireland.  In Ireland “dapping” with the green drake or the daddy-longlegs is practised from boats on most of the big loughs.  A light whole-cane rod of stiff build, about 16 ft. in length, is required with a floss-silk line light enough to be carried out on the breeze; the “dap” (generally two mayflies or daddy-longlegs on a small stout-wired hook) is carried out by the breeze and just allowed to touch the water.  When a trout rises it is well to count “ten” before striking.  Very heavy trout are caught in this manner during the mayfly season.  In the North “creeper-fishing” is akin to this method, but the creeper is the larva of the stone-fly, not a fly itself, and it is cast more like an ordinary fly and allowed to sink.  Sometimes, however, the mature insect is used with equally good results.  A few anglers still practise the old style of dapping or “dibbling” after the manner advised by Izaak Walton.  It is a deadly way of fishing small overgrown brooks.  A stiff rod and strong gut are necessary, and a grasshopper or almost any large fly will serve for bait.

Other Methods.—­The other methods of taking trout principally employed are spinning, live-baiting and worming.  For big river trout such as those of the Thames a gudgeon or bleak makes the best spinning or live bait, for great lake trout (Jerox) a small fish of their own species and for smaller trout a minnow.  There are numberless artificial spinning-baits which kill well at times, the Devon being perhaps the favourite.  The use of the drop-minnow, which is trolling on a lesser scale, is a killing method employed more in the north of England than elsewhere.  The worm is mostly deadly in thick water, so deadly that it is looked on askance.  But there is a highly artistic mode of fishing known as “clear-water worming.”  This is most successful when rivers are low and weather hot, and it needs an expert angler to succeed in it.  The worm has to be cast up-stream rather like a fly, and the method is little inferior to fly-fishing in delicacy and difficulty.  The other baits for trout, or rather the other baits which they will take sometimes, are legion.  Wasp-grubs, maggots, caterpillars, small frogs, bread, there is very little the fish will not take.  But except in rural districts little effort is made to catch trout by means less orthodox than the fly, minnow and worm, and the tendency nowadays both in England and America is to restrict anglers where possible to the use of the artificial fly only.