30 AN OPEN CREEL 



It was a most curious day. The world was wrapped 

 in a blanket of what seemed half thundercloud, half 

 mountain mist. Not a breath of air stirred the smallest 

 leaf, the heat was intense, and the light was shocking. 

 The weather could not have been more unpropitious 

 for trout-fishing ; but the beck was in good volume 

 after the recent rains, and one never knows what may 

 happen, so I started off in knee-boots and mackintosh, 

 and armed with a few worms " in case," soon after 

 breakfast, being driven to a point about two miles 

 down the valley, whence I could drop down the hill 

 to the water, there a good deal less bushed than up 

 above. I put on a two-yard cast, with a black gnat 

 as tail-fly and a blue upright as dropper. Both these 

 alighted on a bush at the first cast over the first little 

 pool, and remained there. But I think I had frightened 

 all the trout in it before that. Repairs completed, I 

 scrambled down the steep bank and got into the 

 stream to fish the next pool. Again all the trout were 

 disturbed before a cast had been made, but in other 

 respects I was more fortunate, the dropper only being 

 lost this time. 



After this there was a succession of almost open 

 pools for some way, so I was quite economical of flies. 

 But the trout were amazingly shy. It seemed to be 

 quite impossible to get within casting distance of 

 them, even from below. From the tail of each pool 

 as I approached two or three fish would dart off 

 upstream, frightening all the rest, as the pools were 

 barely a foot deep, and frustrating the most cautious 

 advance. It was some time before the ice was broken 

 by the capture of a four-inch trout from a stickle more 



