70 AN OPEN CREEL 



all, which once made a perfect April day unforgettable 

 for me. But it is years ago, and my business is with 

 the present and the other Aprils that disgrace it. 



On Monday I awoke to the intelligence (gleaned 

 from a halfpenny journal) that an earthquake had 

 shaken the fisheries to their foundations. It had been 

 likened, in some Northern town, to the " sound of an 

 approaching motor-car," and in the South was thought 

 to be a sufficient explanation of recent sluggishness in 

 the Itchen trout. Coming events cast their shadows 

 before, and several excellent anglers were vexed there- 

 by. But now that the phenomenon was passed and 

 over doubtless all would be well, and the wind might 

 be less violent. In this sanguine temper we drove to 

 the water, assuring one another that the breeze which 

 met us was only the slight disturbance of air natural 

 to higher ground, and that the river valley would be 

 unprofaned by rude zephyrs. More or less we kept 

 this fiction up until we stood in a row on the river 

 bank, clutching our hats, and buttoning up our coats 

 against Euroclydon. Then we said no more and 

 parted. About half-past eleven I stood in an orchard 

 at the corner of a copse, and there saw the first rise. I 

 put on a fly tup's indispensable and essayed to cover 

 the fish, cutting upstream across the wind in masterly 

 fashion. I suppose I was a little too masterly, for the 

 fly sought shelter in a sturdy young oak and found it. 

 My season on the Itchen had now definitely begun in 

 the usual manner, and I left tup where he was, re- 

 placing him by a hare's ear. The fish rose again, and 

 I rapidly lengthened line to cover him until the hare's 

 ear reached the self-same oak, and my cast came back 



