74 AN OPEN CREEL 



3. A MEMORY OF JUNE 



The perfect Mayfly day is a thing of moods of sun, 

 cloud, light airs, and cool, deep shades beneath trees in 

 their first fulness of foliage. It is also, of course, a 

 thing of trout once in a lifetime, perhaps, of as many 

 trout as a man cares to catch, of trout until he grows 

 weary of catching. My memory does not hold many 

 instances of weariness attendant on the capture of trout, 

 and only one wherein the Mayfly played a conspicuous 

 part. But that instance stands by itself, underlined 

 twice in red, once for the day, once for the trout, and 

 once in black for myself. It was an odd day, snatched 

 from Fate, so to speak. I had started out to fish a 

 certain water of an orthodox dry-fly kind a straight 

 half-mile, a curly corner, another straight half-mile, and 

 so on. In its way it was very nice, but to my thinking 

 (which is, I fear, not the right thinking) it was a trifle 

 dull. There were no surprises about the water, and no 

 obstacles to speak of. The fish just rose at one side, in 

 the middle, or at the other side ; one just cast over 

 them with precision and nothing happened. The fish, 

 in fact, knew a thing or two more things than I did 

 which one is apt to resent in Mayfly time. I had no 

 great hopes of the venture, and was there just because 

 in the first week of June one must be. 



By a train of events which was curious, but does not 

 concern the narrative, to me, thus pessimistic, came an 

 opportunity of trying " the water below the bridge." I 

 emphasize these words because every good angler must 

 know their significance. That boundary bridge and the 

 others like it have made the Tenth Commandment well- 



