Chapter 9. The Festival of the Green Drake

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter nine of an Angler's Hours by Hugh Tempest Sheringham.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter nine,
The festival of the Green drake. To the angler who
is modest in his desires, the mayfly must, ever, be
somewhat of a fearful joy. There is something uncanny about

(00:26):
finding the trout in a well fished stream, commonly epicurean
of taste and cautious of habit, converted in the twinkling
of an eye into omnivorous maniacs. And it is small
wonder that the insect whose advent causes this remarkable change
has sometimes been the object of invective as well as pancheric,

(00:51):
For there are many men who prefer a season of moderate,
perhaps slight sport to the crowded hour of glory, glorious life,
which makes all after hours so dull and spiritless. I am,
by no means sure that they are not right. The
passing of the may fly from such a river as

(01:13):
the test is not an unalloyed misfortune. When small flies
plentiful enough to satisfy both angler and fish, a stream
is sufficiently blessed, and artificial excitements are not required. But
there is one aspect of the drake in which his
value can hardly be overestimated. Many trout streams, in their

(01:37):
lower reaches hold a quantity of coarse fish, whose influence
on the trout is to make them large and few,
and for evil associations corrupt good manners, to render them
indifferent to surface food. These waters, in consequence, become quite
useless for legitimate fly fishing, except during the brief carnival

(02:02):
of the may fly. Then, and then only has the
angler a chance. For No trout, however, large or addicted
to minnows, can refrain from joining in the prevalent enthusiasm.
And so you shall find a fish of five pounds
feeding as eagerly as any troutling. Aye, and catch him too,

(02:24):
if luck is with you, and then your happiness should
be complete. Is not a great fish like that taken
fairly with the fly worth a basket filled? Never so
full with pounders? And are there not on the records
of most streams inscribed the tails of trout taken with
the may fly of five, six, and even more incredibly

(02:48):
more pounds? I know once more stream where on the
same evening a fisherman caught a brace of trout weighing
seven and a quarter and nine and a half pounds, respectively.
To this day I cannot think of that brace without
or nor since the tail was told to me, can

(03:10):
I bring myself to fish for pounders with the mayfly.
Even though it prove, as it too often does, that
I have dropped the substance to grasp the shadow, I
do not regret the choice. The substance could not at
most have exceeded three pounds. Of the possibilities of the shadow.

(03:30):
I have spoken, and so I must ask the reader
to turn his back firmly upon this pretty stream that
invites him to linger. It is indeed full of trout.
As we look down on the bridge we can see
one or two lying motionless among the green ribbons of weed,
and a few yards away under that alder bush, another

(03:52):
is rising quietly from time to time, feeding probably on
the fly that takes its name from the bush. In
early June. Nature is lavish of her insect life, and
the alder and the mayfly often vie with each other
for the notice of the fish. And it may chance
that the angler will kill even more with the modest

(04:14):
brown fly than with the drake itself. It is hard
to leave a rising trout without giving him something to
rise for, as the pugnacious urban idiom hath it. But
let the reader only be patient for another half mile
of this dusty high road, and I will warrant he

(04:35):
shall see something better worth the seeing. The trout in
this little tributary are but midgets, attaining only to some
paltry two pounds or so. Not a bad size, of course,
taking all in all, and very fitting for small dry
fly work. But in the fleeting carnival of the drake,

(04:57):
not worthy of our steel. No, we will leave them
behind us, and on after the shadow. The London road
stretches out, white and straight. It is past midday, and
the sign is coming to its hottest. You can see
that this is the most blinding half mile of weariness

(05:18):
and dust in the world. A low hedge is on
either side, and not a tree casts a morsel of shade.
To walk on forever and ever on just such a
path as this would be a very fitting judgment for
the wicked. Add to the picture yon turbulent machine that

(05:40):
comes roaring by, clad in a nimbus of dust cloud,
and imagine the wicked being compelled to jump out of
its way forever and ever, and you began to doubt
whether there be any wicked enough for so excessive an arrangement.
We certainly are not wicked enough. And we may regard

(06:01):
the glare and the dust of the motor car merely
as a kind of purgatory intended to fit us for
the paradise to come. Etche janoa kahelee. We turn to
the right, go round a corner, and are at once
in the deep cool shadows of a perfect English lane.
High banks, fern clad and mossy, crowned with steel. Higher

(06:24):
hedges of hazel, alder and thorn, which almost meet overhead,
make of the sun, but a luminous atmosphere. An oak
here and there spreads out massive limbs, protectingly casting a
deep shade. The wild rose is in full bloom and
stands out against the darker green, shyly conscious of its beauty.

(06:50):
Surely it is the most tantalizing of blossoms, so fragile
and so exquisite. The dainty rogue in porcelain of the
hedgerow a quarter of a mile of this easiest of traveling,
and we are at a gate on the right hand
by two haystacks. It has been newly tarred, and one

(07:13):
may neither climb nor touch what is to be done.
A short field away we can see the small stream
that skirts the water meadows, and beyond the vivid green
which shows the richness of grass intersected by countless rills
of clearest questal, we can see the river itself, gleaming

(07:33):
in the sunlight. Who cares for a little tar? But
soft let instinct work? Are we not descended from the
ape and has not the ape? Forehands tar will not
hurt our heavy boots. And the gate may be so
lifted bracing the muscles of the thigh until it is

(07:55):
fairly open and no harm done, and it may be
shut after the same fashion. Then we weighed knee deep
through the long grass towards the little black bridge that
crosses the brook into the water meadow. Nope, there is
no reason why we should not pause here awhile, and

(08:15):
the elm just shades the bridge nicely. The brook is
rather weedy, but observe the purity of the water, the
gold of the gravel, and the silver of the sand
in that little channel between the streamers. It is the
ideal water for a few fat trout. There is food

(08:38):
in abundance, and there are quiet corners under willows, separated
by little merry stickles, in which an honest fish may
lie and capture every floating morsel, without undue exertion, adding
to his weight. Like some dignified aldermen whose active days

(08:59):
are long past, these pampered fish are not, it is true, numerous,
and they are like the alderman epicurean of taste. But
they cannot resist the mayfly any more than the others.
And I calculate on a brace out of this little
stream before the evening. But at present we should do

(09:21):
little good by disturbing it, as the fly has not
began to hatch out. So we will cross the meadow
and get to the river from here. It looks easy
enough to do so, but in reality the path is
devious and difficult to find amid the long grass. These

(09:41):
water meadows are, in truth a collection of little islands,
cut off from each other and the world by innumerable
tiny streams, feeders of the brook we have just left.
Some of them are but a foot wide, and they
are all at least two feet deep. A man who
eager to be at his fishing hastens heedless, after his

(10:04):
nose will get very wet. I know, because I suffered
the like on my first visit. But there is a
dry and safe path, and across the more considerable drains
there are little bridges, and so with tortuous steps we
reach the river with dry feet. Sometimes, though when the

(10:27):
river runs higher than its wont even this serpentine path
is delusive. The rills gain in size from their parents overflow,
and in turn spread out over the meadows until there
are two or three inches of water through which one
must splash. Hence, some of our fishermen wear long rubber boots,

(10:50):
though they are not comfortable and hardly necessary, stout shooting
boots kept carefully greased, are enough to defy the damp. Now,
let us sit down on the famous black fence and
mop our brows, for it has been no small walk
from the station. Moreover, it will be as well to

(11:11):
investigate the luncheon that has been packed for us in
the Creel. Breakfast is a thing of the ancient past,
and there are fifty good miles between us and the
great city in which we ate. It. If a man
who has come all that distance does not deserve his luncheon.
Nobody does, and while we eat we can observe. I

(11:34):
have said that this fence on which we sit is famous.
It has seen the capture of many a fine fish.
The river here turns a corner after a rapid shallow
and forms a deep pool with a good eddy under
either bank. It is at the tail of the shallow
that the big trout are almost always caught. In the

(11:58):
pool itself, there are generally some heavy pike in the winter,
fish of from twelve pounds upwards, to say nothing of
enormous chard and barble. For this tributary of the Thames
is undutiful enough to surpass its parent in the general
size and quality of its fish. It is probably the

(12:18):
most prolific water in England. But of course, with all
the coarse fish, you must not expect the trout to
be very numerous. If we get one at all, I
shall be satisfied. Just as we have made an end
of eating and are filling our pipes, we see the
first fly. There. He sails downstream, drifting at first with

(12:42):
motionless wings. Upright now he begins to flutter, and we
watch curiously to see if he will escape to the
ampler air or become food for fishes. It is the
unexpected that happens, and a swallow skims over the surface
and picks him daintly off, just as a belated dace

(13:05):
dash is ating from below. The swallows, in truth probably
devour more flies than do the fish. Two or three
more flies struggle up to the surface at intervals. One
of them is taken by a fish under the opposite bank,
probably a dice, for it rows with much fuss and splash.

(13:25):
It is time to put up the rod. We use
no cobware bangossamer tackle here. We have to be able
to throw a long line, and must be ready for
big fish, and so the split cane rod is a
powerful weapon. The rear line is heavy, and the cast
tapers only to the finest. Undrawn, as the catalogs have

(13:48):
it to the uninitiated, rather mysteriously. Perhaps, drawn gut is
gut which has been passed through steel plates, filed down
as it were, until it has lost its original stoutness.
It can be made extremely fine by the process, but
naturally it loses most of its strength. Undrawn gut is

(14:11):
three times as strong as drawn gut of the same
thickness the rear line has been carefully rubbed with a
preparation to make it float, and the cast has been
in the damping box all morning. So all we have
to do is to put on a fly, and we
are ready. The fly box is filled with marvelous patterns

(14:33):
of the drake, with wings of all sizes and colors.
The collection has accumulated for years, and we do not
really need more than about four varieties. And of the four,
this one, with the rather small gray wings and brown
body with gold twist, is my favorite. If I cannot

(14:54):
succeed with this, I sometimes put on that little buttercup yellow.
It is not in the least like any drake that
has ever left the mud, but the trout sometimes take
it well. Then there is the spent gnat, a curious
lop sided thing that floats with its wings flat on

(15:14):
the water. I usually put that on in the evening,
when the fish are feeding quietly close under the banks,
on the myriad of dead flies that come floating down.
The fourth pattern is the straddlebug. Really, I believe supposed
to be an imitation of the sab imago, as it
is in the act of emerging from its case. In effect,

(15:38):
it makes a very good hackle may fly and is
at times killing. Now we are ready, and we must
keep our eyes wide and seriously open for a rising fish.
What is that right opposite, a long shadow lying close
under the clay bank in a little bay. It is

(15:59):
a fig, sure enough, but at this distance of nearly
twenty yards I cannot determine its kind. Yes see, it
has just lifted up a lazy head and taken some
small fly. It is a long cast, but easily within
the reach of this rod. So the line sweeps backwards

(16:22):
and forwards until the length is judged to have been obtained.
A very happy chance makes the gray wings alight on
the bank a couple of feet above the fish. The
slightest of hints from the wrist coaxes the fly onto
the water, and it floats down exactly as one could wish.

(16:45):
As one could wish too, it is taken, and another
hint from the elbow, this time, for it is ill
striking from the wrist with a split cane rod as
what the learned call its resiliency makes it of one
step forward and two back, and so it pays better
simply to tighten on the fish drives the hook home,

(17:09):
and the rod bends in answer to a rush for
the deep water. But whatever it be that we have hooked,
it is certainly not a trout. There is no dash
about the contest, and after a very short resistance, a
dead weight allows itself to be drawn towards us. As
I thought. It is only a chub, and not a

(17:31):
very large one. Two pounds and a half may be
his weight, but he is not worth the weighing, so
he may go in again. Had it been a month later,
he would not have submitted so tamely. But now he
is hardly recovered from the spawning season. The coming ten
days will make a new fish off him, and when
he is heartened up with good cheer, he will be

(17:53):
worth fishing for or anyhow his heavier brethren. Will you
see that row of piles sticking out of the river
under our own bank. It is round them that you
will find the biggest chub. Last season a man took
one of full five pounds there with the mayfly, and

(18:16):
lost another even heavier. The flies are coming down faster now,
and the dace are beginning to rise freely. There we've
hooked one mark. How he fights, He has the cunning
of the grayling, combined with the dash of the trout.
But on this tackle we have him safe. We will

(18:37):
weigh him three quarters of a pound by the balance,
a very creditable weight for his species. He shall be
kept for dace come into season here on this day,
and a few of these big ones look very well
lying on the long grass in the kreel. I wish
they rose as well to small flies as they do
to the drake. Very seldom you get such dace as

(19:01):
this with the black gnat, though it does come about
now and then, generally rather late in the season. Last September,
on this same stream, rather higher up, a man caught
some beautiful dace while grayling fishing. Three of them were
over a pound. But such good fortune has never attended

(19:23):
me here. Just as we are fastening the lid of
the creel, a great plot causes us to start, and
we turn our eyes to the river, just in time
to see the great swirl where some monster rose at
the extreme corner of the eddy. That fish is an
old I cannot say friend, for I have never actually

(19:46):
seen him, but at any rate, an old acquaintance. He
was here last year in the same spot, and rising
in the same tumultuous fashion. Oddly enough, he only rose
about once in every two hours, always with the same
heavy plunge. No efforts of mine, and I spent the

(20:09):
greater part of a day over him could persuade him
to come up to an artificial fly. I was convinced
at the time that he was a colossal trout. But
the interval of a year has given time for calm deliberation,
and now I think he is probably a pike. That

(20:29):
would explain his desultory behavior. For a pike, though he
will rise now and then at a may fly, possibly
out of the feeling for good fellowship that makes so
many men drink whiskey, will not turn to and make
a meal of it after he has reached any considerable size,
So we will not waste any more good exertion on him.

(20:52):
But there is the rise of an indubitable trout out
in the middle of the rapid above the pool. It
is difficult to cover the spot because there is a
thick band of weeds between us and it, and the
line catching thereon will make the fly drag at once.
There are two ways of getting over the problem. One

(21:15):
is to go up above the fish and float the
fly down to him, a method to which there are
the objections that you must stake your all on the
one cast, as in lifting the line off the water,
your bound to frighten him, and that if you should
get a rise, you are very likely to miss him.

(21:35):
The other method is to make what I may call
a false cast from below. That is to say, you
get out considerably more line than you require to reach
the spot and check it in its outward flight, so
that some yards fall in clumsy coils outside the weeds.

(21:57):
It is not pretty to see, but it at least
allows the fly to float down for a yard or
two unchecked, and you can repeat the cast several times.
The first effort sends the fly rather too far, and
it is a good yard on the wrong side of
the trout in calm water. The gut floating over his

(22:20):
head with most certainly put him down. But in this
swift glide perhaps it will not affect him. No, it
is all right. He has just risen again. Now the
fly has fallen just where it should, about a foot
above him, and as it reaches him he comes at

(22:42):
it with a splash. But he has not taken it.
He was suspicious and merely tried to drown it. This
is a common trick of these large trout. Probably they
are animated by the zeal of the witch finder. If
your witch swims, she is a very monstrous black witch.

(23:05):
If she sinks, she is no witch, it is true.
But none the more is she any wife for Caesar.
Now that suspicion has rested on her, and so it
is no doubt. With the fish and the mayfly, we
shall not tempt him again for a while. So let
us stroll down stream, picking up a dace or two,

(23:27):
and looking for another trout. It is not yet really
time for them, with this afternoon sun still so fierce.
When it has dropped a little, say after six o'clock,
we will go to work seriously. At the next fence,
there is a row of willows which spread a cool
belt of shade right across the meadow from the river

(23:51):
to the brook which we first crossed, And under the
willows runs one of the main ditches that connect the two.
This ditch gives in miniature the whole history of its
parent river. At our feet it is but the tiniest rill,
a foot wide and an inch or two deep, babbling

(24:12):
softly over its miniature bed of gravel. A few yards lower,
another rill, even smaller, joins it, joyously adding its atom
of importance. Another and yet another flow in, swelling the
original reel and increasing its responsibilities until it measures a

(24:33):
full yard from bank to bank. Then we find another
stream of equal volume, joining strength, sweeping in with all
the dignity that one full grown river displays when it
merges its identity with another, eddying round its bank, and
marking the conflict of two currents with a little whirlpool. Henceforth,

(24:56):
our ditch is to be taken respectfully. It flows with
the strong, even glide of the chalk stream, and is
spanned with two plank bridges. It is not wholly that
I might point out these facts that we have followed
the ditch, or wholly that we might enjoy the shade.

(25:18):
The mayfly is here too, and I doubt not a
good trout or so with him. Yes, there under the
third willow from which we are standing is a rise
a feeding fish. Sure enough, there are but three may
flies near him, and he has taken them all. Now

(25:39):
we will endeavor to take him. We can safely advance
fairly close as he lies under our own bank, and
kneeling in the shade of the tree above him, we
peep cautiously round the willow trunk. Another determined rise shows

(26:00):
exactly where he is, not six yards away. With an
underhand cast, the flies made to drop onto the water
a little above him, and he comes at it nobly.
In a second he is dashing away downstream, and the
angler is holding on like grim death. We cannot follow

(26:22):
because of the trees, and we must test the efficiency
of trustworthy tackle and passive resistance. Twenty yards below is
one of the plank bridges, and if he gets to
that he is a free trout, for there are piles
under it. But no, he is turned just in time,

(26:42):
and now we can compel him slowly to come back.
The greatest danger is over, and though he is by
no means beaten, he will never reach the bridge now.
And so after a minute and a half of sudden
leaping and short rush, he is at last in the net,
a pleasant and substantial weight for the willing hand. Two

(27:07):
pounds is what the balance makes of him, and we
are pleased, for we had scarcely thought him so much.
He does credit to the ditch and excellently supports the
theory that in a country where trout are at all,
no piece of running water should be despised, for the
fish loves a small stream and grows fat in it.

(27:31):
When the mayflies out on these water meadows, you may
find a trout feeding in the tiniest rill, almost on
the grass, in fact, and no small fry, mind you,
but just such another as this is. Our capture has
disturbed the ditch too much at this point, so we
will go on down to the bridge that so nearly

(27:53):
was our undoing. There is a rise some yards below,
and we proceed very much before, except that we have
now no friendly tree to cover us, and must kneel
afar off. The fish takes the fly as well as
could be, but somehow he's missed. Odd there he is

(28:15):
rising again the moment after at a real fly. We
try again, and he takes the artificial fearlessly, and yet
is missed the second time. But the third time we
strike quickly and hook something of no great size. It
proves to be a dace of half a pound. Rather

(28:37):
a disappointment, we were sure it must be a trout.
There are not many days in these ditches, but a
few come up from the brook after the may fly
at a small pike or two come up after them.
The brook joins the river some three miles lower down,
and though it mostly contains trout, a few coarse fish

(28:57):
inevitably make their way into its holes. The ditch runs
into the brook at a point where several trees make
it impossible to throw a fly from this side, and
there is generally a good trout lying there, quite conscious
no doubt of being unassailable. Below the trees is the
little brick bridge leading across the brook to the farmyard,

(29:22):
and below the bridge is what is known as the pool.
It deserves its name for it is an ideal trout
stream pool. The current flows rather swiftly through the single
arch of the bridge and loses itself in the still depths.
There are a good eight feet of water here in

(29:43):
the deepest part, and though the pool is but fifteen
yards or so in length and eight in breadth, there
seems to be an inexhaustible supply of fish in it.
It is not long since a pike of eight pounds
was caught here, and there is almost a shoal of
fire roach, a few perch, and one or two be grailing.

(30:04):
All these besides the trout. Last year I was watching
an angler fishing here, casting his mayfly right under the
bridge from below, more in hope than in expectation of
a rise. He had just turned round to say something
of no importance when I saw an enormous trout rise

(30:24):
up steadily and absorb his fly. I informed him of
the circumstance, but it was too late, and the five
pounder is, I hope, still there, unless the otter has
slain him. There is a legendary otter who has his
home somewhere under the bridge, but he moves in secrecy

(30:47):
and does his fell deeds under fitting cover of darkness.
The keeper claims to have seen him once out of range,
but the only trust worthy evidence of his existence is
the occasional discovery of one of our best trout on
the bank with the pound of flesh taken duly from
his spotted back. And it is probable that he does

(31:11):
not live here. Distance is nothing to an utter. A
few miles of traveling give him an appetite and improve
his taste for the finer trout let. It be said
that I do not agree with the theory held by
the animal's apologists that he would as leif dnoff charb
or pike as trout, it is not in the least true.

(31:35):
For the otter knows the value and flavor of trout
as well as we do, and if he can get one,
he passes all coarse fish by in contempt. In so
small a stream as this, he can do a deal
of mischief, and does. I would not see him wantonly
butchered on big rivers where there is room for him,

(31:58):
and the angler too. But his depredations here recall the
story of the ewe lamb, for the trout are none
too numerous. Our efforts to get a rise out of
the big one have not been a success, though we
have made a very good pretense of not looking at
our fly as it floats out from under the bridge.

(32:21):
So we will move on. About fifty yards downstream, there
is a drinking place for the cattle, and the hurdles,
enclosing it make a nice ripple in which there is
always a trout. We will fetch a compass out into
the meadow, coming back to the bank some distance below
the rough water. Yes, there is a rise right at

(32:44):
the head of it, close to the hurdle. We advance,
stooping to within casting distance, and the attempt is made
on one knee. The fly is taken fearlessly, and in
a second we are running downstream, winding in line as
we go, for the fish is hurrying in the same direction,

(33:05):
and we must keep below him. But he does not
run very far, nor does he fight very long, and
soon we have him in the net, a long, leaned
fish of a pound and three quarters, not in bad
condition exactly, but a trout of the cassio type, which
no feeding would ever make plump. One meets with such

(33:28):
fish in all rivers, in all seasons. Probably they are dyspeptics,
who eat the things they like rather than the things
they should. But lean or no, he makes a brace
of trout in the basket and is welcome. The exertion
of his capture has made us realize the heat again,

(33:51):
for in London we are not used to running. Tea
would be no bad celebration of our good fortune, and
it will not really be waste of time. A man
fishes twice as well on a hot day when he
has had his tea. And after all, we can spare
half an hour from one pleasure if we devote it

(34:12):
to another, and without doubt it is a keen pleasure
to sit in the little parlor at the farm, looking
out of the open window into the little garden, and
enjoying the scent of the wallflowers, remembering not too obtrusively,
the while, how odious the great city must be at
this moment, with its airless roads, glaring pavements, and disconsolate

(34:37):
rows of black skeletons that are set up by way
of adornment and humorlessly called plane trees. And the hot
tea is itself a blessed thing, the best of the
homeopathic cures, and far more cooling in the long run
than ice. And so let us return to the river

(35:00):
refreshed and strengthened. Now you can see what a mayflyer
eyes really means. The insect is floating downstream, literally in thousands.
He is fluttering over it. He is dancing up and
down the bank. He is clinging to every twig and

(35:20):
blade of grass. He has settled several of him on
our hats, and one is on the middle joint of
the rod. The whole riverside is an astonishing carnival of life.
The swallows are flying low in short circles and eating
their fill. I always think the fly is wasted on them,

(35:44):
for it does not make them grow very fat and
heavy like trout. And the water itself is simply boiling
with fish of all shapes and sizes, And there is
so much fly that close under the bank. The surface
of the water is covered with spent gnats, which float
down unregarded and uneaten. And now our difficulty is to

(36:08):
persuade a fish to rise at the artificial fly, when
the real insect is at each cast to be seen
within a few inches of it. However, we get one
or two good days and return a brace of chub
within a few yards of each other. Though we cannot
persuade a trout to rise. We will now work upstream again,

(36:29):
with the black fence as our objective, for there, if anywhere,
we shall meet with that monster of our desires. All
the way along the meadow between us and it, heavy
fish are rising chub for the most part, with a
trout or two under the opposite bank. But at our

(36:50):
fly they will not look, though we cast it never
so cunningly. Why should they, when the deception must be
so patent. The real insect floats down on its wings
close together like one wing or the mainsail of a cutter.
While the climbs, the artificial spreads its wings apart, I

(37:13):
believe there is a theory that the artificial is intended
to represent the real fly at the moment when it
begins to flutter, which is, it is said, the moment
when the fish seizes it. But so far as my
observation has gone, it seems to me that a trout
rises when he sees the fly flutter or no flutter.

(37:37):
One season I had some flies tied with a single
upright wing, but they would not float. The straddlebug, however,
sometimes answers this purpose and is always worth the trial.
And now we are at the fence again. The low
western sun is right in our faces here, but our
hats have broad brims which save us us from being

(38:00):
dazzled into inaction. Now we can see a trout almost
in the same spot where we caught the first chub.
He is within two inches of the surface, just raising
his head lazily from time to time and taking a
fly as it floats over him. But he won't raise

(38:22):
his head for hours. Though we try several patterns, including
a large wiccam, a fly which sometimes succeeds with may
flies all around it, and a full half hour is
vainly spent in tempting him. Evidently he is not for us,
and we must try another. In the shallow ripple under

(38:45):
our own bank, some twenty yards above us, there is
a quiet rise which is probably due to a trout,
for in the evening they leave the deep water for
the shallow feeding grounds. This ripple has a character of
its own. It is within the belt of weeds and
is formed by a little mound of gravel just below

(39:08):
a drain that leaves the river on the right. The
fly alights on the water just opposite the drain, hesitates
for a moment at the parting of the streams, and then,
yielding to the main current, hurries down on the dancing wavelets,
but not far for a fish rises just where the

(39:31):
gravel begins to shelve towards the deeper water. There is
no mistake about it this time, and almost before we
can realize that we have hooked a fish, he has
bolted downstream and we are clambering over the fence. Fortunately
he seems well hooked, but he is very strong and

(39:51):
looks like running for a mile. This however, cannot be
at any rate. We cannot run with him for twenty
yards below the fence is a drain, and the bridge
is well back in the meadow. When we reach this
we must hold on and hope for the best. There
are a few seconds of desperate opposition when this policy

(40:13):
is put into effect, but all holds, and he changes
his mind, and now he is running upstream again, and
line must be gathered in hand over hand. We hope
he will now choose to fight it out in the
deep water above the fence, And so it proves. He
bores sulkily about in the pool, occasionally making another desperate rush,

(40:39):
and once jumping full two feet out of the water.
But his efforts get less and less violent, until at
last we can draw him over the landing net, fairly beaten,
and a very excellent capture. He is all four pounds.
I warrant you no three pounds and seven ounces only.

(41:01):
Oh well, he thought, as well as if he had
been four. Yes, perhaps I am a little excited, but
you will grant it was such a battle, and is
such a fish as you shall not meet every day.
We will sit down on the fence again to steady
unnerves the most seasoned hand trembles a little after catching

(41:24):
a big trout, and the stoutest heart must flutter in
the moment of triumph. We have done very well. Three
nice trout and seven fine days are a good enough
basket for any respectable person. And we shall envy no
man sport this day, unless, of course, he happens to

(41:45):
calder trout weighing more than three pounds seven ounces. Now
our pipes are lighted. If you come with me, I
will show you a thing. We must go to the
top of the meadow to yon clump of will. Here
you see a floodgate through which a narrow stream flows
out of the river into the meadows, making music in

(42:08):
the deepening twilight. We cross over the gate and follow
the little stream for a few yards until it divides,
one branch continuing on its course, the other turning sharp
to the left and running through an underground channel into
a little round pool hardly more than two yards in
diameter and eighteen inches deep. Hence, the stream flows softly

(42:33):
under the hedge until it joins the brook we have
visited already. Tiny as this pool is, I know there
is a large trout in it. It was thought better
to await the dark before attacking him, for the water
is crystal clear and there is no cover. A spent

(42:54):
nat was put on while we were sitting on the fence,
and now all we have to do is to flick
it onto the water. Instantly there is a heavy plunge,
and the rod is bent almost double. I have him, No,
by Heaven he has us. He has bolted straight down
the little stream and is safe under some roots, And

(43:17):
we are a fly the poorer. Ah. Well, it is
useless to repine. Perhaps two three pounders in a day
would have been greater fortune than we deserve. And so
let us go and seed our country supper with appetites
sharpened by success, and after lay our heads on country

(43:39):
pillows with fair hopes for the morrow. End of Chapter
nine