68 TROUT FISHING 



And then, after I had thrown away the last 

 fragment of cake from a sensation of pure boredom 

 at having to eat it, the whole complexion of the day 

 changed. The trout which had been so hard to 

 catch before suddenly became easy. They took 

 hold of the ginger quill with determination and were 

 all duly played to the net. I shall never forget 

 that afternoon, the glorious warmth of it, the 

 myi'iad hum of insects, and the fat golden trout 

 rising so confidingly in the clear spaces between the 

 weeds. It was one of the days on which I have 

 occasionally had to pause and exclaim gratefully to 

 smiling Nature, " How I am enjoying myself ! " 

 I remember spending a long time over one really big 

 fish, probably a three-pounder, which was rising, to 

 all appearance recklessly, in a deep swirly place 

 below a thick bunch of weeds and above a clump of 

 rushes. Five or six times I got that fish up to 

 various flics, but he never seemed actually to take 

 one. At any rate I never felt him. Probably the 

 swirly nature of his feeding-ground made the fly 

 drag a little every time, enough to make him sus- 

 picious, though not enough to be perceptible to me. 

 It was some consolation, however, to be sure that if 

 I had hooked him he would almost certainly have 

 broken me in the weeds or rushes. 



And even though I failed with him I had done 

 very well by the time I turned downstream with an 



