152 DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 



bait persisted in going up a tree far away to the right 

 of the hne marked out. I calculated at the time that 

 it would have meant three minnows at three and 

 sixpence each, plus other sundries. Reels do very nicely 

 when the water is broad, pike your prey and plentiful, 

 and the direction the bait may choose to take almost 

 immaterial. I have been told of a winch that is 

 coming which, in answer to the slightest pull, will 

 give the line the utmost freedom for so long as the 

 need remains. That sounds all right, but the maker 

 is slow or his difficulties are greater than he anticipated. 

 It does not seem impossible, this promised perfect 

 winch; so I can only doubt its coming. 



How much or how httle should we tell our friends 

 of where we get the sport of which we write is a ques- 

 tion on which opinions seem to differ. While I may 

 not give such information as would cause the owner 

 of a private fishing who, perhaps, has been generous 

 to me, to be bothered with applicants, I feel some- 

 what bound to assist my readers to go where I have 

 been, and do as I have done, when the fishing is public 

 or to be purchased. 



There are ready unbelievers in what is written, even 

 of fishing, about which it is so easy to discriminate 

 between daylight truth and midnight dreams; there- 

 fore I have reason to feel flattered that what I have 

 written has been so ver\^ generally believed that I have 

 now to take part in drawings of lots for beats on rivers 

 where before I wandered at will from pool to pool. 

 One Spring some of the new-comers to the Lyon 

 fishing were so fully occupied with studies of a secret 

 nature that it was difficult to get speech with them and 

 impossible for many days — such was their caution — 

 to get an inkling of what they studied. I imagined 

 them great men burdened with matters of such weight 

 and moment that the fishing was but little in their 

 minds, and was very surprised when I discovered 

 that it was my description of the river, on torn-out 



