14(8 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil. 



causeway, which is good close to the shore where the stream runs round 

 the projection. I carelessly pitched my fly into it, and Johnny was 

 standing in front of me, when up came a good fish with his mouth 

 open right under Johnny's nose ; whether he saw Johnny or no, I don't 

 know, but he refused and went down again. I rested him for five minutes, 

 and then, keeping well back, covered him again, and he came sweetly. He 

 did not make a grand fight; he got into the round still eddy above the 

 point, and there kept hovering round and round, now and then going out 

 into the stream, but always coming back to the eddy, and once as he came 

 sliding past the point I lifted him a bit, and Johnny put the clip into him, 

 and hauled him out, a middling fish of ll^lb. 



At last we had broken the ice, but we had nothing to wet him in. 

 That was bad. It was getting towards dusk, and I hardly hoped to see any 

 more fish ; but, in spite of that, having fished the Angler's down to the first 

 stone, and in obedience to Johnny's advice, changed the fly for one a 

 size larger and a shade lighter, and having "hung it," according to 

 directions from my mentor " over that stone," I got a lug which sent the 

 blood once more spinning through my frame, and I got a capital fight out 

 of a 16^1b. fish, which we landed just as day declined, and packing up our 

 traps we made oiu* tracks to town, much congratulated on our take when 

 we got there ; but, oh ! if we'd only — but there, it is no use grieving over 

 spilt milk. 



Of all the fish I had a chance at on the Erne, first and last, I most 

 regretted one in particular. After the big wide pool above the bridge, 

 the first cast you come to is called the Eall Hole, the stream from it 

 Kathleen's Fall, from a certain Kathleen who was said to have leaped it on 

 horseback. It is a raging torrent about forty feet wide, a gully down a 

 steep pitch, and through which for perhaps two or three hundred yards 

 (I speak from memory) the whole body of the Erne rushes. On the south 

 side there is a high level grass bank along the whole length of this torrent, 

 which is very easy travelling. On the north, however, it is very bad 

 ground, with broken rocks, steep banks, and every sort of obstruction — 

 an infernal place to get along in the gloaming. The hole above this rapid, 

 out of which it runs, is a small round swirly hole, and rarely holds a fish, 



