20 TROUT FISHING 



especially if you are using Stewart or Pennell tackle, 

 though I must own that, as a rule, I have found two 

 hooks somewhat too many for these brooks, which 

 are apt to contain far more snags than trout. 



They sometimes contain other things, too. The 

 very last time, I think, that I fished such a stream — 

 it was not long before the war began — my day's 

 fishing yielded one small dace, a ridiculous eel, and 

 a fat minnow. The last was the result of much 

 patient work in a very promising pool under a willow. 

 I was induced to persevere by occasional twitches 

 at the rod-point, which suggested a trout of vacillat- 

 ing disposition — I have known plenty of fish like 

 that in free and unpreserved waters — but in the 

 end the minnow somehow got attached to the hook, 

 though it was rather a large one. After that of 

 course I fished with him, but it was of no avail. 

 But for a momentary glimpse of a three-quarter- 

 pounder, which fled from a shallow corner at 

 my approach, I had no experience of trout that 

 day. 



Yet it was by no means a day wasted. I counted, 

 as I fled from, at least a dozen wasps' nests. I had 

 a leisured lunch in the sun on a comfortable sheep- 

 bridge, and all the time I gloried in the minuteness 

 of the stream. It was no more than six feet wide 

 anywhere, and it made me a boy again for the time 

 being. As I came to each pool in turn I had the 



