CLEAR WATERS 



come to realise that such a desirable consummation 

 either with wet or dry fly was virtually impossible. 

 A friend of mine, a very fine dry-fly fisherman, 

 tells me he has had precisely the same experiences 

 upon the Berkshire Lambourn. Now trout couldn't 

 do this if they tried, not keep it up, that is to 

 say, for hours and hours. Small trout, to be sure, 

 can be very persistent and exasperating at this game, 

 but they all take risks and are not nearly as expert in 

 making themselves quite safe. You wiU have a poor 

 dozen or two at anyrate after a day's entertainment 

 of this kind, and though you may feel very ruffled, 

 and very hot, and very tired when it is over, your 

 state of mind will be nothing to the exasperation 

 aroused by a couple of hours of it with three to the 

 pound grayling. I remember at my first encounter 

 with this mood on the Till, after being wrought up 

 into a state of high fever, resorting to the floating 

 fly and kilHng a fish on the very first two presen- 

 tations of it. * Now, my friends, I am going to take 

 it out of you,' was my triumphant ejaculation, for 

 they had probably never been introduced to this form 

 of presentation in their lives. But it was no good. 

 The word was evidently passed up stream and down 

 that some devilment was on, and they flicked con- 

 temptuously and harmlessly at both wet and dry fly 

 for the rest of the day. 



But the Lugg grayling never do this sort of thing. 

 They come very short at times, of course, which is 

 within their rights, and occasionally they do not 

 come at all, but they have not the diaboHc sense 

 of humour of these others. Perhaps, after all, it is 

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