Chris Pearce provides alternative and traditional methods to catch Irthing and Gelt trout.
I canna` hurt your casting fly;
I dib with beetle bug.
Your spinning penk you still can ply:
I`ll dape with mouse or slug.
Here are Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton's observations on worms for angling, and Cotton's instructions on how to set about the job once you have gathered your supply.
And first for worms: of these be very many sorts: some breed only in earth, as the earthworm; others of or amongst plants, as the dung worm; and others breed either out of excrements, or in the bodies of living creatures, as in the horns of sheep or deer; or some of dead flesh as the maggot or gentle, and others.
Now these be most of them particularly good for particular fishes; but for the trout, the dew-worm (which some call the lob- worm) and the brandling are the chief; and especially the first for a great trout, and the latter for a less. There be also of lob-worms some called squirrel-tails ( a worm that has a red head, and a streak down the back, and a broad tail) which are noted to be the best, because they are the toughest and most lively; and live longest in the water; for you are to know that a dead worm is but a dead bait, and like to catch nothing, compared to a lively, quick stirring worm: and for a brandling he is usually found in an old dunghill, or some very rotten place near to it.
There are also divers other kinds of worms, which for colour and shape alter even as the ground out of which they are got; as the marsh worm, the tag-tail, the flag-worm, the dock -worm, the oak-worm, the gilt-tail, the twatchel or lob-worm which of all others is the most excellent bait for a salmon.
Izaak Walton.
That we call angling by hand is of three sorts. The first, with a line about half the length of the rod, a good weighty plumb, and three hairs next the hook, which we call a running- line, and with one large brandling, or a dew-worm of moderate size, or two small ones of the first, or any other sort proper for a trout, of which my father Walton has already given you the names, and saved me the labour; or indeed, almost any worm whatever; for if a trout be in humour to bite, it must be such a worm as I never yet saw, that he will refuse.
Charles Cotton.
He then describes baiting the hook and paternostering in coloured water before coming to the matter in hand.
The third way of angling by hand with a ground bait, and by much the best of all other, is, with a line full as long or a yard and a half longer, than your rod; with no more than one hair next the hook, and for three length above it; and no more than one small pellet or shot for your plumb; your hook little; your worms of the smaller brandling, very well secured, and only one upon your hook at a time; which is thus to be baited. The point of your hook is to be put in at the very tag of his tail, and run up his body quite over all the arming, and still stripped on an inch at least upon the hair, the head and remaining part hanging downwards; and with line and hook thus baited you are evermore to angle in the stream, always in a clear rather than a troubled water and always up the river, still casting out your worm before you with a light one-handed rod, like an artificial fly; where it will be taken sometimes at the top, or within a very little of the superficies of the water; and almost always before the light plumb can sink to the bottom, both by reason of the stream, and also, that you must always keep your worm in motion by drawing still back towards you, as if you were angling with a fly; and believe me, whoever will try it, shall find this the best way of all others to angle with a worm, in bright water especially.
Charles Cotton.
There it is in a nutshell, and written nearly 350 years ago. Several combinations of modern tackle can be used successfully, but I think that generally the most useful adaptation of Cotton's hazel rod and tapered horsehair line is a 13 to 16 ft. coarse fisher's whip with a piece of old fly-line tied to the end of it, and then a couple of yards of light monofilament.
The method works all season, but late June through July are usually best. The pools also provide their share of fish, especially when they are rising to betray their positions.
Other baits also work well fished the same way; stonefly creepers in late April through May, in fast water, caddis grubs, all season and anywhere, though it becomes difficult to find ones that have not pupated later on; and large stone-clinging ephemerid nymphs. These are very tender and difficult to cast, but abundant and easy to catch with a sieve or fine-meshed net.
These are the baits I usually use, but many others like woodlice, beetles and small slugs have caught fish, so scratch around for what you can find.
I haven't tried a mouse yet! But daping is another story.
Chris Pearce
Kirklinton