HOT DAYS ON THE AVON 155 



shady nook on the lawn to the home-coming after 

 seeing the very end of the evening rise. Nor was 

 sport lacking despite the dearth of fly. On the first 

 morning after exploring the main stream for a while 

 without seeing a rise, I found myself at the mouth of 

 a carrier on whose banks were many bushes. In hot 

 weather bushes are eloquent of "happening fish," 

 those exceptions to the rule of abstinence which cruise 

 about in the shade looking for caterpillars and other 

 likely trifles. Such fish may save the situation on a 

 chalk-stream when no duns are in evidence. 



By the side of that carrier I spent the rest of the 

 blissful morning laying siege to several fish that from 

 time to time rose in odd corners. The water was very 

 low and quite stagnant, the hatches above being down, 

 and the trout were in consequence shy, difficult, and 

 very erratic in their movements. The net result of 

 three hours' waiting, stalking, crawling, and casting 

 was four rises to a Wickham. The first produced a 

 fine trout of one and three-quarter pounds. The 

 second led to great alarms in a fish of about the same 

 size. The third was followed by grief and desolation, 

 as a big fish bolted for its home under a willow, and in 

 bolting shook out the hook. The fourth produced 

 another trout, one and a quarter pounds, in rather an 

 odd manner. In turning a sharp corner round a bush 

 I alarmed a moorhen, which scuttled, after the annoying 

 fashion of its tribe, and disturbed the water, as I 

 thought, for yards. I was just going on to the next 

 corner when I saw a rise close above me in the very 

 wake of the bird's scuttling. Standing still, I detached 

 the fly and was about to lengthen line for the cast, 



