CLEAR WATERS 



abstinence, which terms Evan accepted, and stuck 

 conscientiously to port ever after. 



A short stifEsh rod of eight or nine feet, a cast not 

 too fine, and three flies was the outfit for a coracle, 

 and after embarkation, which is always a delicate 

 business, we swung out on to the bridge pool and 

 commenced our seven or eight mile journey. We 

 had to make it in rather less than that number of hours, 

 for Berwyn station was the only point where the lower 

 half of the water touched the railroad or anything like 

 it, and as there were not many trains in April on that 

 single-track line, we both, I to return, and my pilot 

 with his boat to go on home to Llangollen, had to 

 catch the last one. We fished, therefore, after the 

 manner of coracle-fishing, as much water in an hour 

 as a wader hereabouts would cover in a day. For in 

 a coracle you are always on the move, slipping down 

 and down with the current, casting rapidly here and 

 there in the eddies, boils, or smooth fringes of the 

 tumbling streams — fore-handed, back-handed, or any 

 way that comes convenient at the moment. 



There is no retracing your steps. Frequently there 

 is no opportunity to throw a second time over a risen 

 fish. In so large a river as the Dee, when it is fairly 

 full, there is often a choice of routes through the long 

 reaches of rocky and troubled waters. You can't 

 indeed cover it all even in this hasty fashion ; there 

 is often an embarrassment of riches both to the right 

 and to the left, and one of them has to be passed by 

 untested. Sometimes one side is better than the 

 other in the choice of trouty spots, and Evan is not 

 likely to select the worst. Where the current is not 



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