thinks, that weeds float with their points down-stream; and that
therefore if a fish is to be brought through them without entangling,
he must be 'combed' through them in the same direction. But how is
this to be done, if a fish be hooked below you on a weak rod? With a
strong rod indeed you can, at the chance of tearing out the hook,
keep him by main force on the top of the water, till you have run
past him and below him, shortening your line anyhow in loops--there
is no time to wind it up with the reel--and then do what you might
have done comfortably at first had you been fishing up--viz., bring
him down-stream, and let the water run through his gills, and drown
him. But with a weak rod--Alas for the tyro! He catches one glimpse
of a silver side plunging into the depths; he finds his rod double in
his hand; he finds fish and flies stop suddenly somewhere; he rushes
down to the spot, sees weeds waving around his line, and guesses from
what he feels and sees that the fish is grubbing up-stream through
them, five feet under water. He tugs downwards and backwards, but
too late; the drop-fly is fast wrapt in Ceratophyllum and Glyceria,
Callitriche and Potamogeton, and half-a-dozen more horrid things with
long names and longer stems; and what remains but the fate of
Campbell's Lord Ullin? -


'The waters wild went o'er his child,
And he was left lamenting.'


Unless, in fact, large fish can be got rapidly down-stream, the
chance of killing them is very small; and therefore the man who
fishes a willow-fringed brook downward, is worthy of no crown but
Ophelia's, besides being likely enough, if he attempt to get down to