214 BY HOOK AND BY CBOOE. 



gain a boulder lying almost in mid-stream and present- 

 ing about as much surface as a cbair-bottom, from 

 wliicli we had to play the fish. 



He was a perfect demon, and ran in all directions, 

 without rhyme, reason, or any system whatever, and 

 time after time we got him up, simply to provoke an- 

 other run into the heavy water. 



If we could but have followed him it would have been 

 all right, but this was out of the question, as the attempt 

 to kill him fifty yards away would have been simply an 

 act of imbecility, for we should never have got the dead 

 weight up against the stream, so we hauled at him, until, 

 in the endeavour to check a further run, bang went the 

 gut and away he went with minnow and a couple of yards 

 of the best treble twisted. Sickening work indeed, for 

 he was a grand fish. 



Our luck was indeed dead out at this pool, and, with 

 no heart to court further disaster, we made up bank to 

 the streams forming the head of the pool, and waded 

 out to command a catch in which we had noticed fish 

 rising. 



To reach the catch it was necessary to wade out forty 

 or fifty yards over the surface of the rock to gain access 

 to a gullet in which lay the fish ; indeed, a casual 

 spectator of an augler thus casting would wonder how 

 he managed to get there. 



We cast carefully down, pitching the fly well into 

 the breaks on the far side, so that it might swing 

 round nicely into the channel which harboured the fish. 



