CLEAR WATERS 



more or less ready to take the fly, and certainly no flies 

 that I for my part ever oflter them or have seen my 

 friends offer are more effective than the red-tag and 

 the mid-blue. 



In a short week during each of now many successive 

 years on this water, it is curious to remember when 

 comparing it with any trouting record, that half a 

 dozen fish is the nearest to a blank day recorded in 

 my journal. And the Lugg grayling are strong and 

 shapely, averaging like its trout about two to the 

 pound. No reference to written data, however, is 

 needed to recall many a good basket from this alluring 

 stream. Several times while pursuing my homeward 

 way across the big ox pastures to a certain hospitable 

 roof upon the green slopes beyond, I have been thank- 

 ful that the Lugg is not a wading river, and that the 

 burden of waders and brogues is not added to the 

 burden on one's back. Once or twice I have had to 

 cut short my day from the fact that my tolerably 

 capacious creel would not hold another fish. And it 

 may be remembered that there is no object in sparing 

 grayling whatever might be desirable in some waters 

 with regard to trout. They can always more than 

 maintain themselves against any onslaught of the fly- 

 fisher. Moreover, where the trout shares their water 

 one feels that the more grayling fairly killed the better, 

 as the less noble tenants of the stream are apt in this 

 case to be over pushful towards their betters. In 

 the north, as we shall see, the grayling has in this 

 way worked havoc. But I think in streams like those 

 of Herefordshire, where nature has placed these kin- 

 dred breeds side by side, she somehow preserves the 

 IJ8 



