DRY-FLY MEDITATIONS 67 



spoils our holiday by refusing to fall in with our ways. 

 At any rate, if we do not get all the sport we expected 

 than which nothing is more probable we shall 

 explain the fact by adverse comments on "the new rod." 



Rod, reel, and line are, unfortunately, not the whole 

 of it. There are many other matters which require 

 attention. The landing-net, for instance, seems to 

 have occupied the winter in breaking its meshes, and 

 now displays four or five well-developed holes. But 

 for the merest accident these might have been over- 

 looked, and so might the very insecure condition of 

 the knuckle-joint. Even as it is, we know not when 

 we may see the net again, once it has joined rod and 

 reel in the repairer's hands. So there will very likely 

 be a new net inscribed on that " little account." The 

 oil-bottle (really, oil-bottles one way and another are 

 the plague of a fisherman's life) is lost. It may be 

 somewhere or it may not, and it is safer to assume 

 that it will not turn up before April. Item, a new oil- 

 bottle. The spring balance is, alack ! all rusty, as 

 well it may be, for, now one comes to remember, it fell 

 into the river on the last day of last season, and was 

 only rescued with difficulty. The mishap was clean 

 forgotten, and no steps were taken to prevent mischief 

 ensuing. Now arises the question, Can one trust a 

 rusty balance ? No ; a new one is essential. A search 

 for or examination of other small necessaries, such as 

 tweezers, dampers, and the like, leads one on to 

 repetition of the same melancholy determination, and 

 then one turns gloomily to the gut and flies. 



At the beginning of a recent season I devised a very 

 crafty scheme. Inability to say whether any given 



