204 TROUT FISHING 



caught in relation to the amount of time and 

 enthusiasm expended. One season, I remember, 

 which I spent on a portion of the Kennet noted for 

 its big fish, yielded almost no trout to me though 

 other rods were getting their three-pounders and one 

 got a beauty of over five pounds. 



I hardly got a chance of a three-pounder that 

 season, the reason being that I spent practically 

 the whole time right at the bottom of the water 

 waiting for my eight-pounders to begin to rise. 

 There were eight-pounders there — at any rate there 

 was one, for I saw him one day but a few inches 

 from my eyes; I was looking over the camp- 

 sheathing and he was swimming slowly upstream 

 close beside it — but the trouble was that there was 

 no Mayfly, or not enough to make the big fish rise. 

 Day after day the appearance of odd flies en- 

 couraged a hope that the rise was just about to 

 begin, but day after day it stopped short of the 

 desired point. So I got no sport worth mentioning 

 and never saw one of my eight-pounders take a fly. 



I have spent other seasons quite as unprofitably, 

 but I have usually succeeded in getting at least 

 one rise out of a fish which has seemed to me worth 

 long waiting. The ambition to get a monster has 

 of course given me some thoroughly dull days, dull 

 at least so far as active employment is concerned. 



