282 THE TROUT ARE RISING 



turning the scales at exactly two pounds. Diffi- 

 dence is an attractive quality, but if a man would 

 learn to be an angler, it seems better for him to 

 risk losing his first fish or so, and thus to acquire 

 experience, than to hand over the rod tamely to 

 some one else. 



An adventure of old days on the Severn im- 

 pressed me much at the time, and was carefully 

 stored in my memory, so that I should profit by 

 it should the occasion recur. On a summer 

 evening, when wading on a ford between Cressage 

 and Buildwas, I got attached to a trout apparently 

 between two and three pounds in weight. After 

 a fine fight, lasting several minutes, he escaped. 

 When I reeled up the line I found that a small 

 fish was on the hook. It proved to be a samlet 

 showing signs of having been in trouble. The 

 explanation of course was that the samlet had first 

 taken the fly and that the trout had immediately 

 taken the samlet. Had only the true state of 

 affairs been grasped sooner, the obvious procedure 

 for that special emergency would have been to 

 allow the trout more time instead of never giving 

 him a moment's rest. 



The incident in a measure repeated itself 

 about nine years later, when I was fly-fishing on 

 the Umgeni in Natal. The Severn incident 

 leaped swiftly to my mind when two small scalies, 

 having respectively taken each of the two flies on 

 the cast, a big fish was seen darting at one or 

 other of them. A pause, identically as resolved, 

 was made, so as to give the cannibal time. But 



