TroiU Flies, 1 49 



on the instant He rushed to his hiding-place 

 under the boards. I held on, and turned him, 

 and, after a five minutes' tremendous struggle, he 

 was in the net ; 3^ lbs., and a beauty. By eight 

 p.m. I had basketed nine brace of splendid fish, all 

 with the M.ay fly, except the two last, which I 

 took with a large Alder." 



There is a charming little river running into the 

 Thames at Pangbourne — the Pang. The lower 

 part of this water belonged, at the time I fished it, 

 to the famous dentist, Mr. Cartwright, who preserved 

 it very strictly. One day in June, some twenty 

 years or more ago, I was fortunate enough to 

 have a good day's sport with the May fly ; a very 

 yellow, or rather yellowish green fly, is very killing 

 in this water. We had driven over from Reading in 

 the morning. Being very partial to fishing the hatch- 

 holes in the water meadows, I gave up the stream 

 ^at first to my friend, and fished four or five of these 

 scattered about the meadows, sinking my fly. I 

 got a good fish out of each, and before the day was 

 over — we had to dine with Mr. C. at seven — I got 

 six brace of beauties, from i lb. to 3 lbs. ; my friend 

 also had good sport, killing four brace, two of which 

 were over 3 lbs. 



Another day, in the same month and year, we 

 had capital sport higher up, at Mr. Connop's, who 

 most obligingly placed his part of the river at our 



