82 AN OPEN CREEL 



chronicler knows too well from his own proper experi- 

 ence) is the lot of those who would outwit them. It 

 may be that the bank shakes ; it may be that they 

 have eyes in their tails. Whatever may be the cause 

 of their security, there they lie always by one, by two, 

 by three and three pounds apiece. 



5. THE EVENING RISE 



The angler is a hopeful mortal who ought to know 

 better, and the evening rise is a delusion based on his 

 weak readiness to believe all good things of the time 

 that is coming ; also, there never was a river better 

 named than the Test. If an angler should win through 

 four days on this river (taken when leisure permitted, 

 and in malign consequence when the conditions were 

 uniformly unfavourable) without having his patience 

 tried to the breaking-point, set him down as the 

 angler who is indeed complete. The Itchen has a 

 name full of irritating possibilities, and it does its best 

 to deserve it. But the other has something of solemnity 

 in its designation, as befits a stream whose trout are 

 of greater size and whose fascination for the fisherman 

 is so much the more irresistible. 



Yet, patience or no patience, an invitation to fish 

 the Test is a thing to accept by telegram, for there are 

 days when the fish rise boldly, and the angler fills his 

 creel with three-pounders other men have these days, 

 so one is sure of it. Also there is the evening rise ; 

 one has this oneself, though it somehow differs from 

 other people's, if one may judge from their stirring 

 accounts. The comparison of experiences is always 



