April, 1827.
TICKLING TROUT.
For the Table Book.
It is a liberty taken by poachers with the little brook running through Castle Coombe, to catch trout by tickling. I instance the practice there because I have there witnessed it, although it prevails in other places. The person employed wades into the stream, puts his bare arms into the hole where trout resort, slides his fingers under the fish, feels its position, commences tickling, and the trout falls gradually into his hand, and is thrown upon the grass. This is a successful snare, destructive to the abundance of trout, and the angler’s patient pleasure. The lovers of the “hook and eye” system oppose these ticklish practices, and the ticklers, when caught, are “punished according to law,” while the patrons of the “rod and line” escape. Shakspeare may have hinted at retribution, when he said
“A thousand men the fishes gnawed upon.”
Pope tell us that men are
“Pleased with a feather, tickled with a straw.”
P.