76 AN OPEN CREEL 



casting at a venture, I hooked a fourth trout, which got 

 off, and rose a fifth. The Wickham was, I am almost 

 certain, unknown to them, too. But I did not experi- 

 ment further, returning to the upper stretch when I had 

 ascertained that trees and bushes made fishing in the 

 channels below the pools impossible. Having returned, 

 I put on a Mayfly, whose name suggested liberal 

 opinions, and, I hoped, liberal rewards, and waited for 

 the drakes to hatch out. This they did about midday, 

 and the hearty trout rushed to dinner at once literally 

 rushed. When trout rush I lose my head, and I made 

 every mistake that the dry-fly angler can make. My 

 proceedings set out in due order and classified would 

 fill a textbook, whose novel and valuable design should 

 be to teach the novice what he should do by the process 

 of negation. He should not do everything that I did. 

 Whatever else he might do would be orthodox and 

 correct. Despite all this, however, by lunch-time I had 

 landed five brace, averaging about one pound. The rest 

 of the fish in that water I had risen and missed, or lost, 

 except two, which were so far under a tree that I could 

 not get at them. I put a fly just over each of them, 

 however, in the tree, and left it there. Of the ten fish 

 I only killed one one and a half pounds. The curious 

 feeling of shame was still upon me ; I was convinced that 

 none of those trout had ever seen an artificial Mayfly 

 before, and, even if they had seen hundreds, I did not feel 

 justified in keeping them after the exhibition I had 

 made of myself. I went off to lunch in a mood border- 

 ing on irritation, and did not come back to the water till 

 after tea, when another hatch of fly might be expected. 

 In the evening I fished the two pools alternately, and 



