220 TROUT FISHING 



make sure of the rise you should be out with the 

 lark and home with the owl), and I received a 

 delightful surprise on finding myself quite alone 

 on the first stretch I came to, where the smaller 

 river rounds a corner lined by trees on the far bank. 

 This smaller river is not of so much account as 

 the big one, and though it holds good fish, it has the 

 reputation of being dour. Besides, it is later than 

 the other, and the Mayfly was not really due on it 

 yet. It seemed to me that so far it, or, at any rate, 

 this topmost, rather inaccessible, corner, might 

 have been overlooked. 



Having evolved this theory, I saw several Mayflies 

 and, immediately after, poised near the surface a 

 trout of such calibre as I had not deemed possible 

 in the stream. Then I saw another even bigger, 

 and after him three more, all big and all in evident 

 expectation of the hatch. " This," I said to the 

 solitude, "is good enough. Here I am; here I 

 remain." I will not deny that I was excited. To 

 have lighted on a practically virgin piece of water 

 during the Mayfly time on one of the hardest flogged 

 fisheries in England was a piece of superb luck, by 

 which I hoped to profit to the tune of three brace 

 weighing at least twelve pounds. Afterwards no 

 doubt the stream would be fished as intensively 

 as the rest, but for the moment I seemed to be not 



