140 AN OPEN CREEL 



but it was not too rash. A trout of one pound six 

 ounces came to basket from a little weir not far above, 

 though the fish that should have been the " one more " 

 had departed with a ginger quill in his mouth. Between 

 sandwiches, taken at 2.30 p.m., and tea, deferred by 

 efforts after " yet another " till nearly six, three more 

 trout were added to the catch, all with the ginger quill. 

 One of them, a beauty of one pound fifteen ounces, was 

 rising in a very awkward place, where a four-feet wire 

 railing (the top strand barbed) skirts the river on top 

 of a rather high bank. It was necessary to make a back- 

 handed cast over the fence, and it must be confessed 

 that no thought had been given to the problem of land- 

 ing the trout if he should be hooked. It had to be 

 solved on the spur of the moment by playing the fish 

 dead, and then netting him through the wire fence. He 

 was worth the trouble. Three more fish after tea, two 

 with hackle red quill and one with Welshman's button, 

 completed a grand basket. Nine fish, weighing in all 

 about twelve pounds, are a matter for remembrance. 



The other good day was in some ways even better ; 

 I had success thrust upon me, despite my efforts to 

 avoid it. 



The timely hour of nine found me at Bell Mill with 

 my face upstream and my mind set on the upper 

 waters above Sunderlandwick. Nor did I pause long 

 anywhere till Dawson's Dam that deep, slow-flowing, 

 tree-shaded haunt of big trout above the next mill was 

 reached. Here the sight of what, for Driffield, is a 

 heavy fish stopped my progress. He was rising lazily 

 nearly at the bottom of the dam, just below the hatch 

 which feeds the tumbling-bay, and was evidently the 



