278 THE TROUT ARE RISING 



Scotland, Wales or Ireland, years ago : yet here 

 you are overseas, experiencing the same sensation, 

 all the eager, boyish delight, once more ; and, when 

 you have caught your first trout in your adopted 

 Colony or Dominion, you will verily feel you have 

 " caught your first trout again ! " The youthful 

 joy comes back in its freshness. You are a boy 

 again ! The trout is examined, and looked at. 



O 3 * 



and looked at again. The old appealing details are 

 there, though the setting is so different. You 

 will enjoy the incident all the more if you feel 

 you are part and parcel of your adopted new 

 country. You will feel that it is good to have 

 trout fishing in your new home. You will realize 

 happily that more triumphs may await you. You 

 will say that trout fishing is so good for your 

 health, as indeed it is. Some might give greater 

 honour to the first salmon, the first mahseer, or 

 the first tarpon, but to me the capture of the first 

 trout in a British Dominion seems the second big 

 occasion ; the landing of the very first trout in 

 the little stream at home, in boyhood's days, 

 must always remain the first. That is why I say 

 you may catch your first trout again when you 

 are overseas. 



Well do 1 remember my "first trout again." 

 I had gone down from Johannesburg to the 

 River Umgeni in Natal. The spot to be fished 

 was remote from the railway Dargle Road was 

 the nearest station and from the farmhouse 

 where I was staying nobody fished, at the time. 

 I was given directions how to get to the river. 



