FISHERMAN'S MANUAL By J. P. Moreton and W. A. Hunter
This little book is a model of its kind. It contains a maximum of information, exactly the right proportion of anecdotes (always to the point), and a joke or two,' like the pinches of flavouring in the excellent and much-needed receipts for the cooking of coarse fish. The only thing wrong with it is an execrable jacket illustrating an even more execrable pun. Otherwise, it is the best short manual on fishing that has come into our hands. The chapters give instructions for the taking of perch, pike, roach, grayling, salmon, trout, sea-trout, and the various coarse fish. There are excellent illustrations, with diagrams of baits and tackles. To give Tull instructions for trout and salmon in so short a space is of course impossible, but the authors have shown great skill and judgement in compressing all that is most necessary. An-interesting once- dote illustrates the insensibility of fish to pain " A curious instance of the voracity of perch was described by the late Mr. Cholmondeley Pennell, who, when fishing at Windermere, accidentally removed the eye of a small perch which ho was unhooking. As the fish was too small for the basket, and as bait was running very short also, Mr. Pennell returned the maimed fish to the water and put the displaced eye on a hook as bait. It was almost immediately taken by a fish which, on being landed, proved to be the original owner of the eye."
One of the most attractive features of this little book is that the authors give such human good advice :
" The only safe rule about the choice of a Ay is that the best fly is that which is longest on the water, and the next best that in which you have most faith. Use the fly you think is most likely to tempt a fish and persevere with it—none of the others in your box is nearly so good."
Fisherman's Manual (Black 2s. 6d.), is the perfect present for the young Asherman or the beginner, and contains much of value to the old hand.
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