THE WELSH DEE 



founded it and strove or temporised through the ages 

 with the ever-pushing Norman. 



I have said a good deal of the coracle because it is 

 a strange and unknown craft. But most of my days 

 and hours upon the Dee have been expended not upon 

 its streams but battling a-foot with its outrageously 

 rugged bottom. The trout come early here into 

 condition and are forward in taking the fly, though 

 more capricious than most, probably from the amount 

 of bottom feed to which they give themselves almost 

 whoUy over comparatively early in the season. It is 

 admittedly less interesting to fish a big river across 

 and down than to work a smaller one up stream. 

 There is unavoidably a good deal of what may be 

 called the salmon-fishing method about it, with its 

 inevitable touch of monotony. But it is after all a 

 change from the other, and that to me is one of the 

 charms of trouting. Moreover in the Glyndyfrdwy 

 water, over which we have just been in fancy drifting, 

 there is very little of that regular alternation of 

 stream and pool which distinguishes the Dee as it 

 sweeps down from Bala through the green vale of 

 Edeyrnion to Corwen and Carrog. On the contrary, 

 it is much broken and impeded by rocks and ledges, 

 and forced by the rugged road it has to travel into a 

 constant variety of shifting water and changing depths. 

 All this has labelled it dangerous, and at any rate it is 

 extremely arduous wading. It is assuredly not every 

 one's water. Wading is one of the minor arts of fish- 

 ing, and if either unused to it or physically unhandy, 

 it is beyond doubt in such waters extremely hazardous. 

 Swimmer or no swimmer, if you sUther into a deep 



E 65 



