THOUGHTS ON BIG FISH 171 



type and gave me a great fight. I had at that time 

 never seen a trout out of the water of anything like 

 such a size, and I had no idea what it would weigh. 

 Five pounds was as much as I dared to hope for, so 

 my pride and joy when the scales at the keeper's 

 cottage revealed the truth can be imagined. It was 

 a beautiful fish twenty-five inches long and with 

 deep, gleaming flanks, a picture of an old Colne 

 trout. I had other good and handsome fish from 

 that pool and the stream below afterwards, but 

 nothing to approach that one. The biggest was 

 four and a half pounds. Another angler a few 

 years later got one of seven and a quarter pounds. 

 The Colne has in its time yielded a good many fish 

 of about that size, but I am afraid that some parts 

 of it have now seen their best days. The extra- 

 ordinary catches at West Drayton made during 

 the years when the water was heavily stocked with 

 big fish, suggest that the river may yet be capable 

 of recovery. The fish seem to thrive well enough 

 in its lower reaches, though of course the Thorney 

 Weir records are not due to the natural breeding 

 capacities of the stream. 



I should not like to assert positively that I ever 

 hooked anything bigger than the second trout on 

 my list either. This weighed six and three-quarter 

 pounds, and was caught at Blagdon on a gold- 

 bodied fly which has since done a good deal of 



