202 AN OPEN CREEL 



course, blew, and made fly-fishing very difficult, but 

 I got some four brace of decent grayling, the biggest 

 one and a half pounds, and saw enough to convince 

 me that the river ought to give very good sport on 

 a fair day. It holds quite a remarkable head of brown 

 trout for a North-Country river, and I saw numbers of 

 good fish, landing one of quite one and a half pounds, 

 which was hooked in the tail, and played like a vast 

 grayling. He was returned with contumely. My last 

 day's grayling-fishing on the Till, which had cleared 

 by that time, upset the opinion conceived on the first, 

 for the fish would not look at a wet fly, but came 

 pretty well to a tiny brown spider fished dry. It 

 was a warm, sunny day, and there was a certain 

 amount of fly on the water. Therefore it would seem 

 that the dry fly is of use on the Till. 



Whether it would be worth a South-Country angler's 

 while to go so far in pursuit of grayling would depend 

 largely on the weather. With still, calm days and 

 frosty nights good baskets would be almost assured ; 

 but the fish are not very large, and such weather 

 conditions are rare among the Cheviots. However, 

 it is something to know that the Till is most certainly 

 a grayling river. The country, too, is most attractive, 

 with great rolling, desolate hills standing sentinel over 

 the winding river valley. One finds at Wooler the 

 real Northumberland a country of big, hardy men 

 and magnificent air; a country in which one can 

 march ten miles with the ease of five in the relaxing 

 South. I never had a holiday which was more 

 beneficial to health and appetite. Since my visit 

 a friend of mine has been there earlier in the year, 



