n6 AN OPEN CREEL 



captured in its transparent body. Once we had a 

 really great fishing together. It was a glorious August 

 day, and the roach were on the feed in every hole of 

 the backwater, which was a string of holes separated 

 by short gravel shallows. With no more than a loose 

 handful of groundbait scattered broadcast in each hole, 

 and with a good large piece of white paste on the hook, 

 we caught roach literally as fast as we could. The 

 water was a clear brown, and it was most fascinating 

 to see down in the depths the gleam of a broad side as 

 the rod went up and the hook went home, and after- 

 wards to be able to follow every moment of the fighting 

 fish. The man who has not yet played a good roach 

 on gossamer tackle in eight or ten feet of really clear 

 water with the sun on it has a rare pleasure still to 

 come. The roach that day were beauties, and of the 

 twenty kept three would have weighed two pounds 

 apiece had I trusted to instinct and not to a spring- 

 balance which had neither heart nor soul, and was (I 

 maintain it) rusty somewhere inside. 



It was shortly after that day that the naiad float 

 disappointed me by parting asunder at the junction of 

 the two sections of quill, and leaving me floatless just 

 as the fish were beginning to bite. The sections could 

 be joined together again, but the float was never the 

 same after. Sooner or later the water would leak in, 

 and the naiad ceased to be a float, becoming a thing 

 of no classification unless it belonged to the order of 

 plummets. On the whole I prefer my plummets to be 

 of lead, so I gave up the naiad float with a sigh of 

 regret as a last tribute to its beauty. There remains, 

 however, a certain habit of mind induced by it, and I 



