SOME KENNET DAYS 57 



trout of consequence, so far as I could see, was on the 

 move, but the hatch of fly was only just beginning. 

 In any case, I was not minded to stay by the shallow, 

 but to go down to the bottom of the water to a 

 favourite spot of mine of old, where I had been much 

 tantalized by the sight of big trout, generally tailing, 

 sometimes minnowing, but never rising, even in the 

 Mayfly time. For some reason very few Mayflies 

 hatched at this point never enough to make the trout 

 rise though higher up the hatch might be very great. 

 I covered the half-mile quickly, but not too soon, for 

 the hatch was in full swing when I got to the weed- 

 rack, which is almost at the bottom of the water. And 

 not only was fly coming down fish were coming up 

 under the camp-sheathing opposite. One in particular 

 attracted my eye, and as I watched it I mentally 

 grovelled before Hyandry. What he had said was 

 absolutely true, and here were the big Kennet fish 

 doing it again ; it was not even a case of a blue moon. 

 I then became excited and nervous. I am not accus- 

 tomed to seeing big fish feeding like that in April. 

 Moreover, the place was the last but one in the world 

 which one would choose for an encounter with any- 

 thing over a pound on such tackle as one employs for 

 small dry flies. The river is about twenty yards broad. 

 The weed-rack, a pretty solid structure of piles and 

 wire, known as the " Stop," is shaped like a wedge, 

 with its point upstream and in the middle of the 

 river, and so its sides slope away to the banks, forming 

 acute angles with the camp-sheathing. A fish hooked 

 anywhere near the rack is morally certain to run down 

 into the angle, and there to destroy the tackle at 



