284 AN OPEN CREEL 



is worth bearing in mind, for when one is half-way 

 round, the distance covered is no wise less in returning 

 the way one came than in completing the circle. I was 

 all for a cautious procedure, but consuming curiosity 

 as to what lay beyond every next promontory led me 

 on and on until the thing was done, and backward 

 steps were become, if not impossible, at least ineffectual. 



The flies commonly used for Blagdon trout are 

 smallish salmon flies Silver Doctor, Jock Scott, 

 Silver Grey, and the like. March brown and 

 Alexandra take their toll of the fish, and there is a fly 

 with a gold body which has been dubbed the "Field " 

 by Donald Carr, the head-ranger. I introduced it at 

 my first visit, and it killed well for a couple of seasons, 

 but I fancy it has pretty well exhausted its magic by 

 now. It is little more than a Wickham with a red 

 tail and one or two extra adornments. Salmon-flies 

 require something powerful in the way of a rod, and I 

 started with a fourteen-foot split cane, which I did not 

 find a bit too big for bank-fishing. Even for boat 

 work I believe a double-handed rod would have ad- 

 vantages, as the trout often rise within a yard or two 

 of the boat, and a single-handed rod sometimes fails to 

 drive the big hook home. But conditions now are not 

 quite what they were, as I hope to show later. 



On the first day I fished Blagdon conditions were 

 unfavourable, the wind being cold and the fish sulky. 

 There had, it subsequently appeared, been misfortunes 

 among the sticklebacks. Either they had all been 

 eaten or had died some other way ; at any rate, there 

 were none visible, and so the big trout were not close 

 in shore chasing them, or lying in wait as they ought to 



