184 AN OPEN CREEL 



These "bankers," the prey of their own morbid 

 imaginings, came in for a good deal of comment over 

 the dinner-table; it is legitimate to hope that they 

 were not unaware of it. 



However, when the rise is really on, these fish meet 

 with the contempt they deserve from their fellows, and 

 the angler stands a better chance. Also it seems that 

 a tailer in the Coin will sometimes be induced to rise. 

 On Whit Monday three of these equilibrists performed 

 somersaults at my small ginger quill, and, after a 

 spirited contest, came to the net. One of them made 

 an astonishing fight, such as I have seldom experienced 

 in a chalk-stream. The moment it was hooked it 

 simply tore nearly all the line off the reel, and all but 

 succeeded in reaching a willow on the opposite bank a 

 good distance upstream. Stopped at the risk of the 

 fine point, the trout turned and bolted straight down- 

 stream for a good fifty yards without slackening speed, 

 followed rather than led by the rod, in spite of anxious 

 haste on the angler's part. After this excursion the 

 fish jumped several times, and made wild but gradually 

 diminishing dashes before it gave in. On the bank it 

 proved to be a perfectly- shaped trout of silvery com- 

 plexion, but it only weighed a bare three-quarters of a 

 pound, exceeding by an inch the eleven inches which 

 are the size-limit for the water. All the Fairford fish 

 are extremely game when in good condition, behaving 

 more like the trout of a mountain stream than those of 

 Hampshire or Berkshire. Perhaps they are the con- 

 necting-link between the two. 



One wet but amusing morning was occupied in 

 playing to the gallery, not of set purpose indeed, but 



