THE FISHING DAY 67 



arc no trout to be admired or counted during the 

 luncheon interval; while, as for starting out in 

 the afternoon and getting to the water at two or 

 thereabouts, I cannot rid myself of the old notion 

 that it is bound to be a complete failure. 



Yet I have had plenty of proof that the trout 

 fishing day is by no means necessarily over at one 

 o'clock. Often and often have I eaten luncheon in 

 gloom and fared rejoicing to tea. I remember a 

 lovely July day on Driffield Beck some years ago 

 when I sat almost desperate beside one of the little 

 weirs which give charming variety to the water 

 above Sunderlandwick. My desperation was not 

 so much due to the fact that trout had not been 

 rising as to the fact that they had, and that I had 

 been extremely unskilful or, at best, horribly 

 unlucky. Fish after fish had been hooked and lost, 

 and the climax had been reached by the loss of a real 

 beauty in that very weirpool. I may have had one 

 sizeable trout in the creel — I think I had — but that 

 was as nothing in comparison with those which 

 were not in it and ought to have been if I had had 

 my rights. So I ate my sandwiches and cake for 

 no more satisfactory reason than that one has to 

 keep exhausted nature going. How different is 

 such a repast from that seasoned by the honest 

 hunger which comes of carrying a fairly heavy 

 basket I 



