236 TROUT FISHING 



running through, then coming back, and if 

 necessary running through again. They were very 

 thorough about it. 



The oddest, and perhaps the saddest, experience 

 I ever had with weeds was when a trout in a branch 

 of the Test tried the expedient of diving straight 

 down into a bed after a high jump into the air. 

 The weeds were very dense and the unhappy fish 

 just stuck in them with his tail-end in the air. He 

 could not move, I could not move him, it was too 

 deep to wade, so I was forced to pull the line till 

 the gut broke and so leave the affair. Whether 

 he ever escaped I do not know, but I fear not, as 

 some hours later that lamentable tail was still in 

 the same position. He was not a sizeable fish and 

 would have been duly returned had he not tried 

 what our airmen call " stunts." 



Some trout fishing troubles are less tangible than 

 those caused by wind, weeds and other things that 

 one can recognise and blame, or even than those 

 caused by things that one can surmise, such as 

 " tired " rods. One of the queerest perhaps is the 

 depression that comes of failure after success, the 

 sense of futility in contrast to an earlier suspicion 

 of being a man of parts. 



A priest once told me that intellectual pride was 

 a very grievous sm, and I believe he was right. 

 Like all grievous sins, too, it brings its proper 



