Ill DACE-FISHING AT ISLEWORTH ^ o 



r lpHE angler might travel very much farther and 

 A fare very much worse. That is my thought 

 every time I visit Isleworth fly-rod in hand, and it is 

 strange if September or October does not find me 

 there at least once in each year. I have made the 

 expedition pretty often now, but the charm of it never 

 fails ; it is like nothing that I know in the way of fish- 

 ing near London. Nowhere else can one feel that one 

 is literally cheating Fate out of a few happy hours. 

 When one goes farther afield, to the Colne, perhaps, at 

 West Drayton, Uxbridge, or Rickmansworth, there is 

 the sense of an undertaking about it ; one is earning 

 the right to enjoyment by dint of railway travelling, by 

 having made " arrangements," by being burdened with 

 a landing-net and possibly lobworms one'is definitely 

 out for the day. But Isleworth is a simple, un- 

 premeditated sort of matter. At luncheon-time one 

 has a sudden conviction that too much work is telling 

 on one's health, and that an afternoon off is the right 

 medicine. A glance at the paper tells one that the 

 tide was high at London Bridge at half-past nine ; a 

 simple calculation proves that, since it is an hour later 

 at Richmond, the Isleworth shallows will begin to be 



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