XXX BLAGDON o o o ^ *> 



LIFE is largely composed of regrets, some bigger, 

 some smaller. One of my very biggest is that on 

 a certain May morning in the year 1905 I was not at 

 Blagdon, whither I had been bidden by one of the 

 great anglers of our time. As things were, I was 

 gazing dolefully upon the Wye in flood ten feet of 

 flood there were, I remember and wondering how 

 Lorenzo was faring the while. And how was he 

 faring ? Five brace of trout weighing some fifty 

 pounds that was approximately his modest basket. 

 Other things being equal, I would, I think, sooner fish 

 for salmon than trout, but when the trout are such 

 trout, when the salmon-river is in big and increasing 

 flood, when one reflects that never in the history of 

 English fishing had there been such an opportunity as 



Blagdon offered that May, and when But one 



cannot go into the whole appalling business and still 

 keep calm. I might have caught an eight-pounder ! 



Lorenzo did, then or soon afterwards. I might 



It was not till the opening day of the following 

 season that I made first acquaintance with the 

 wonderful Somersetshire lake which has inspired so 

 many angling rhapsodies, and then I was a year too 



280 



