WHEN LADIES FISH 179 



husbands and wives in sympathy on fishing 

 holidays. In Devonshire in the spring of 1919 

 one married couple used to go off together every 

 day. On reaching the water they would go their 

 several ways, meeting to compare notes at lunch- 

 time or in the evening. This had long been 

 their invariable custom. The lady, of course, 

 depended on herself for landing fish and every- 

 thing. Devonshire streams are well suited to 

 ladies who fish by themselves. The trout there 

 run small and do not take so much landing or 

 unhooking as the pounders or two-pounders of 

 chalk-stream districts, though it would be hard to 

 find fault with their sporting qualities. 



The husband of a wife who fishes ought, I 

 think, to be a pretty good hand at it himself. 

 I knew of one sad case in which a man was 

 always urging his wife to fish. At last she took 

 his advice, and applied herself to the art seriously. 

 She happened to be a very clever woman and in 

 course of time she not only equalled her adviser 

 in skill but surpassed him in basket. The last 

 state of that man was that he gave up fishing and 

 was to be seen meekly accompanying his wife as 

 she fished. She allowed him to carry her landing 

 net ! 



In Scotland I met a honeymoon couple who 

 had angling gear with them. He was an ex- 

 perienced fisherman, she a novice. They were a 

 happy couple, but fishing was too much for them, 

 and once they had begun they got so interested 

 and absorbed that they were very soon out of sight 



