84 TROUT FISHING 



heat, I had during the earlier part of it caught four 

 averaging over two and a half pounds (one being 

 three and a quarter pounds), and during the evening 

 I proposed to kill other two brace without lowering 

 the average weight. 



Things had not, however, prospered with me, for 

 the blue-winged olive and other small patterns had 

 failed, and I was reduced to the picking-up business 

 with a red sedge in the waning light. And then 

 the fish suddenly began to take. One after another 

 they hurled themselves on my sedge. One after 

 another they tried to pull it and the line and rod 

 away from me. Huge fish too ! And one after 

 another they let go and returned to their other 

 affairs. 



At the end of all things I felt for my line in the 

 darkness, in order to take off the cast. I pulled the 

 gut gingerly through my fingers, as one does, that 

 the hook might do me no damage. And there was 

 no hook ! There was a sedge all right, but it had 

 lost not only its point and barb, but even the bend. 

 It was just feathers and silk on a piece of straight 

 wire. 



I remember that I was profoundly moved by that 

 evening, so moved that I reported the whole matter 

 to headquarters, so to speak. I wrote to F. M. 

 Halford about it, letting him know generally what 

 I thought of the evening rise as an institution. I 



