44 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil. 



raise the point in the air, and Sandy winds up the spare rod and lays it 

 aside, so as to be out of- the way, and resumes his oars, watching every sheer 

 of the fish, and answering it with a touch of the scull to this or that 

 side ; and for the next twenty or twenty-five minutes your blood is coursing 

 through your veins as though you were twenty instead of fifty. Then he 

 comes sliding out of the depths up to the surface, and makes a spring 

 and a plunge that send your heart into your mouth, and a " canny, sir, 

 canny," from Sandy warns you duly; and a big golden and bronze side 

 if he be a laker, or a leaden or steel- grey if he be a ferox, displays itself 

 to your longing gaze, and when, after many dangers, you see him safely 

 panting in the net or flopping on the bottom of the boat, you are broad 

 awake for the rest of that day.* 



As for Thames trouting, that, too, is a task of expectation. If you 

 can fish for a fish for a fortnight, seeing him frojn time to time, and always 

 just where your bait isn't ; if you can sit on a weir beam eighteen inches 

 wide, with tons and tons of water thundering down under your feet for 

 hours together, and not feel a bit giddy or excited, but calmly spinning 

 in and out of every little eddy, pitching your bait to an inch, and then, 

 after all, . see some dufPer with jack gorge tackle, or a big perch or barbel 

 hook, haul your beauty out by the hair of his head, and then go on fishing 

 again for another, you may in time make a successful trout fisher. I 

 fished very hard when young, and never caught more than six in several 

 seasons. I suppose I was abominably unlucky ; indeed, I know I 

 was. 



The late William Bolland, who was fond of the river, I remember one 

 season stayed at Hampton Court ; and I fished five days a week, and 

 throughout most of that season I never got a fish. W. B., who only fished 

 on the odd day, when I couldn't, nearly always got one. I was a very 

 skilful hand at it, and he couldn't throw ten yards of line. I never 

 could make it out, and threatened more than once, when I was saluted 

 with, "Muster Bolland got a nice fish to-day, sir, 51b.," on my arrival 



* One of these fine fish, an ll-pounder, caught last year at Eannoch by me, was 

 presented to the Piscatorial Society, and was set up by Cooper. It may now be seen in 

 "The Field" window. It is a very handsome common yellow trout. There are two other 

 sorts of large trout in Rannoch besides the Salmo ferox. — F. F. 



