CLEAR WATERS 



On Derwentwater there are, or were, a considerable 

 number of local fishermen, obviously men of leisure. 

 For every morning, from early May till the drake season, 

 you might see half a dozen boats come rowing down 

 from Keswick to the upper reaches of the lake between 

 the old lead mines and Lodore. Here they would fish 

 and re-fish over the drifts as the wind ordained. At 

 either end of every boat was planted an angler always 

 standing up and waving a fifteen-foot rod as if it were 

 twenty pound salmon and not pound trout that he 

 was after. Why they did not sit down comfortably 

 with a ten-foot rod I never could imagine ; for the 

 extra distance they might cast (and trout don't mind 

 a boat very much) was at least neutralised by the extra 

 display of their persons to the fish. Why these enor- 

 mous rods, this violent exertion, this tiresome balancing 

 on heel and toe in an often rocking boat I cannot 

 think. But the fishermen of Derwentwater main- 

 tained that you could not catch their trout any 

 other way. I did, however, and so of course would 

 anybody. At least I caught my share in the two or 

 three days of the mayfly season in which I occupied 

 one of a dozen or fifteen boats on the lake. For when 

 the drake comes up, anglers come out in much greater 

 force, and when the drake goes down, the trout, I 

 believe, remain at the bottom for the rest of the season. 

 But this was over a dozen years ago, and the per- 

 pendicular attitude and salmon-rod superstition may 

 have given way. May-fly seasons vary of course im- 

 mensely. When I was there it was a bad one, and we 

 didn't average more than two brace a day to a rod. 

 A pound is the unit weight on Derwentwater, but fish 

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