beneath tlie cascades, and anytliiutr more iiuiideroTis I never 

 saw. I preferred to float an aldei', of large size, on the 

 deep slow-rnnning' water, M'liere I «^ot some very liaiulsome 

 fish, includin<^' two splendid o-iayling- close on 211). apiece. 

 These fish were both dimpling- at the opposite side to the 

 one I was fishing-, and they were moving about some blades 

 of grass which lumg- into the stream. It was a long cast for 

 a wee 10ft. rod but I ultimately got the alder across on to 

 the bank, and worked it gently down on to the water. 

 There it remained, until the sagging line sunk it, and as 

 the fly went under something moved beneath it, and I 

 struck. Then the fun began, for I w^as fast in a big fish, 

 which fought backwards, in jei'ks, doAvn stream, and skit- 

 tered round in quite a different manner to a trout. When, 

 finally, he came to net, I found tliis big grayling had 

 a round turn of the cast around his body, and the alder 

 firmly fixed in the corner of his mouth. It was a grand fish 

 of fully 21b. weight, but I had a horrible misgiving that 

 grayling were out of season. Putting him into my landing 

 net, and fixing the net in the water, with the net handle 

 driven into the bank, I made my way up to the cascade 

 above in search of information. The man fishing there 

 heard my story and my doubts, and he assured me, most 

 emphatically, that grajding were out of season, and fore- 

 shadowed my appearance at Ashbourne Petty Sessions. 

 The result was that I sadly retraced my steps, and still 

 more sadly returned " Thymallus " to his native element. 

 Then the keeper came along, and I told him what had 

 happened. "You don't mean to say you put the fish 

 back?" he asked, in astonishment. I assured him I had 

 done so, and then he told me that the close time for gray- 

 ling had been over for a week ! This was very galling, 

 and the more so as my experiences of two-pound graylings 

 were then very limited. But I set to work again on those 

 bank feeders, and within a dozen feet of where the other 

 fish was hooked I got another under precisely similar 

 circumstances. And, what was still more ciu'ious, this fish 

 wound himself round the cast precisely in the same manner 

 as the first had done. They were the counterparts of each 



