A FIRST SPRINGER AND SOME OTHERS 91 



rod with the Black Dog briskly rang me up, and I 

 leaped to the call with " Got him ! " " So have I," 

 cried the head man. Tom Thumb had found a fish, 

 and we were each busy for a while. The men had all 

 they could do to get the boat to land and winch in the 

 two loose lines. But it was done, as usual, promptly 

 and cleverly. I was too intent upon my own fish, the 

 heaviest I had battled with that day, to see how it was 

 done ; suffice that there was no hitch. We both stepped 

 ashore. The head man worked his fish above me, 

 and, it being a small ro-pounder, soon threw it in 

 again, and his mate was free to come down to me. 

 We all knew it was a kelt, and get him to spurt or be 

 lively I could not. He lay low and solid till patience 

 had done its perfect work, and in he came. There 

 was an end of my back-ache when the rod and I could 

 straighten ourselves and leave the men to tail out the 

 fish. They hurled him in regardless of his feelings, and, 

 indeed, like gentlemen whose honour had been sorely 

 wounded. 



" Eighteen pounds, wasn't he ? " I ventured to re- 

 mark very humbly as they turned their contemptuous 

 back on the fish floundering awhile in the shallow. 

 " Weel, saxteen punds, maybe," was the reply. These 

 kelts, anyhow, left us no time for further operations. 

 The sun had been so effective that it had changed the 

 outlook all around in a few hours by restoring the land 

 to its original green and brown. Business done, as 

 " Toby, M.P.," puts it four landings, six pulls, two 

 fish hooked and lost, one of them, of course, the fish of 

 this or any other season. I shall always maintain it 

 was a " fish." That night I had a chat with a brother 

 angler, who had made a grand bag, and he introduced 

 me to his friend who had enjoyed the success of the 

 novice in killing a beautiful fish of 22 Ib. 



