THE WATERS OF CADER IDRIS 



very day in all the years that we made our bumper 

 basket on his water. I use the plural for brevity, but 

 it will require much qualifying, just as the regrets 

 that the owner was out on a presumably propitious 

 day will require some explanation. Now by long 

 odds the most successful sewin fisherman of our 

 party was an old friend of my youth. He was the 

 Nestor among us as regards the Dysynni, and had fished 

 it for I don't know how many years, having some 

 old connection with the neighbourhood. At any rate 

 he had established an understanding with the Dysynni 

 sea-going fish that no one, local or alien, ever I think 

 quite equalled. His favourite fly — a variety of claret 

 and mallard, if I remember rightly — was dressed 

 especially for the Towyn tackle-vender, and called 

 by my friend's name and recommended to all strange 

 fishermen. Possibly it is still. Wickham, Hoffland, 

 Francis, and other classic characters writ large on the 

 parchment margin of the Towyn chemist's case of flies 

 took a back seat, and the — well, never mind, bade 

 fair to give my friend immortality upon the banks of 

 the Dysynni. Sea-trout fishing theoretically is simple, 

 straightforward work, calling apparently for no special 

 deftness, nor pregnant with any great mysteries like 

 trouting. But my friend had some gift, and possibly 

 an unconscious trick of so manoeuvring his flies, even 

 in the dead waters where one cast was exactly like 

 another, as to kill more sewin than anybody, and if a 

 salmon was about and was to be caught at all, he 

 always nipped it. Probably he was also what is known 

 as a lucky fisherman. 



But at any rate on this occasion he and I, armed 



123 



