162 AN OPEN CREEL 



of the brethren and eat roast lamb, not ill-content. 

 My fish exceeded by an ounce anything I had hitherto 

 caught on the water. 



After lunch I went upstream above the mill, and 

 there found as remarkable a state of things as I 

 have ever seen on a Mayfly river. The water for 

 some three - quarters of a mile pursues a sinuous 

 course between low banks, ending in a wide mill- 

 pound, and, in striking contrast to the stickles below 

 the mill, is deep, and so sluggish as almost to be 

 without current. A Mayfly hatching out sits medi- 

 tatively in the same place for a long time, unless 

 disturbed by wind. Here and there fish were rising, 

 some of them good ones, but they did not seem to 

 appreciate artificials, even though placed to a nicety 

 in the exact spot of a previous rise. I found out 

 why later, but that day was much puzzled. Surely, 

 I thought, the fish could not be shy ; except in the 

 Mayfly time they rise very little to surface food, and 

 are fished for with wet March browns and similar 

 flies. The river is not a dry-fly stream really, and 

 has very little hatch of fly, except in late May and 

 June. At last, seeing a rise in a bay at a bend of 

 the stream, I dropped my fly almost in the ring made 

 by the fish, had an immediate response, and was 

 presently engaged in as fierce a battle as I have 

 ever had with a trout. It was a two-pounder in the 

 pink of condition, and it must have taken seven or 

 eight minutes to land a beautiful shapely fish of 

 obvious Lochleven ancestry. This completed the 

 day's bag, as after tea I went downstream again, 

 and failed to get anything worth keeping. 



