200 LINES IN PLEASANT PLACES 



With thunder all around the hills it did not seem 

 promising for the trout ; still we had driven eight miles 

 to try them, and were there for the purpose, so we 

 unmoored the boat and began. The trout were small 

 and of two varieties a dark, heavily-blotched, lanky 

 fish, with coarse head, and a shapely golden fellow, 

 thickly studded in every part with small black spots. 

 I used merely one cast Zulu, red and teal, March 

 brown with silver ribbing and in two hours I had caught 

 forty-one trout weighing 13 Ib. In salmon fishing here 

 one catches brown trout every day ; your salmon fly 

 may be large, medium, or small, it is all the same to 

 these voracious fario, which never appear to be more 

 than half a pound. One has the consolation always 

 in Norway of knowing that what one catches need 

 never be wasted. There is something quite touching 

 in the gratitude which the poor villager evinces in re- 

 turn for a present of two little trout. 



An instance may be mentioned of apparent service 

 to the salmon angler by the trout which, as a rule, are 

 execrated as an intolerable nuisance. After you have 

 succeeded in working your fly some thirty yards below, 

 and can feel it swimming on an even keel at the end 

 of a straightly-extended line, the supreme moment of 

 expectation has arrived ; to have the situation thus 

 achieved by labour ruined by the impudence of a trout 

 9 in. or 10 in. long is warranty, if ever, for speaking 

 out. My example is of such a nuisance to which I 

 owe a grilse. At any rate, that is my theory. Two 

 salmon and five grilse were at that time my total for 

 odd hours of fishing during part of the week, and I 

 had fished with the Durham Ranger and Butcher 

 (No. 4). One evening, putting off for another drift 

 down the pool, I^bethought me of a set of his favourite 

 turkey wings specially dressed for this expedition by 



