CHAPTER IX 

 A CONTRAST IN THAMES ANGLING 



MY personal knowledge of the Thames trout is not 

 profound ; but if it has left me somewhat short of the 

 affection which many anglers proclaim, it has inspired 

 a high respect ; and if my interest in him is not pre- 

 cisely direct, I always have been able to sympathise 

 keenly with his multitude of lovers and admirers. On 

 this entrance upon another Thames trout season I 

 have him in my thoughts, and am pleased to know 

 that his status, character, and honour are on the 

 whole nothing diminished as the years revolve. In 

 the past I have, indeed, seen something of Thames 

 trouting, and though I have, by lack of opportunity, 

 not engaged largely in it, yet have formed ideas upon 

 the subject that may be formulated as a seasonable 

 topic. Also I have reason to remember this fish as 

 figuring in one of the curious printer's errors of my 

 early journalism. In a special big-type article in a 

 daily paper I had glorified the breed and the business 

 by the magniloquent demand " Who that has battled 

 with a fine Thames trout in a thundering weir will ever 

 forget, etc., etc. f " The step from the sublime to the 

 ridiculous appeared next morning in the rendering 

 " Who that has bathed with, etc., etc." 



The ichthyologists who have made a study of the 

 interesting salmon family have, perforce, unanimously 



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