XXXI TWO COLNE TROUT o *> ^> 



OF trout, whatever may be the case with those 

 higher beings of whom it, or something like it, 

 was originally written, it is certainly true that "when 

 they won't, they won't, and there's an end on't." And 

 never was there a place where they more emphatically 

 won't than a certain weir-pool of the Middlesex Colne 

 nine times out of ten, at any rate. I have fished it 

 on all the nine occasions, so I may claim to speak from 

 full experience. Colne trout are like Thames trout 

 that is to say, they have points of resemblance with 

 trout of other waters, but, as that charming writer, 

 H. R. Francis, once put it, they are "more so." The 

 big ones have their appointed feeding times mostly 

 either before one can get down from town in the morn- 

 ing, or after one has had to return to it at night and 

 they never take anything between meals. I know one 

 or two big fish in the river that are extraordinarily 

 abstemious. One in particular, of whom I have been 

 aware for five years, has fed in that period four times 

 twice in my presence, once in the presence of another 

 angler, and once before the keeper. When I saw him 

 dining, they were quite big dace that fled before him, 

 and he ran a giant's course. One must suppose that 



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