CHAPTER IX 



THOUGHTS ON BIG FISH 



A TROUT is, I take it, a big one according to 

 circumstances. I have seen a man in one water- 

 shed with mouth open and eyes a-goggle on a fish of 

 one pound being produced for his inspection. On 

 another watershed I have seen the same man 

 carefully returning a fish of over that weight to the 

 stream with hardly a groan, or anyhow with no more 

 complaint than is permissible to a wet-fly fisher 

 newly introduced to a chalk stream. One's 

 memories of big ones, therefore, must necessarily be 

 coloured by the conditions in which they were 

 caught or seen — in my case more often seen than 

 caught, and I think it is those that were merely 

 seen that have left the most piquant memory behind 

 them. 



I remember once taking a country walk with a 

 friend who is now dead. It was just a country walk 

 with no atmosphere of fishing about it. He was no 

 fisherman, and so far as I knew there were no trout 

 within miles. But it was lovely country and hot 

 summer and I was quite happy. About lunch time 



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