40 SOUTH COUNTRY TROUT STREAMS 



from these words that the historian was a casual 

 angler, a man who merely made a fly rod an ex- 

 cuse for a little rest and change ; on the contrary 

 he was an ardent fly fisherman. 



It is a far cry from the chalk streams of Hamp- 

 shire or Hertfordshire to the moorlands of Devon 

 and Somerset, from the two or three pound trout 

 to the five or six to the pound troutlet, and there 

 are probably some regular home county anglers to 

 whom such sport as Erme or Okement, Barle or 

 upper Exe could offer, would seem scarce worth 

 having. I do not think, however, that the great 

 majority of good anglers who have been accus- 

 tomed to sport among the heavy fish of the chalk 

 streams will quite fail to appreciate the pleasures of 

 the different kind of fly fishing that is associated 

 with Princetown or Simonsbath. The season for 

 these moorland troutlets of the Western Counties 

 opens much earlier than that for most of the rivers 

 within a hundred miles or so of London. February 

 is scarcely an inviting month to the angler, but the 

 fish of the moorland streams are often fit for the 

 creel then, while March sometimes turns out to be 

 the best month in the year. As the summer draws 

 on, the streams, which, unlike those of the chalk 

 country, are directly and immediately affected by 

 the rainfall, often begin to dwindle, and the prospect 

 in July and August will then wear rather a hopeless 

 look. 



When the cast wind blows in March or early 

 April up in these high places of the south of Eng- 

 land — as it has the habit of doing — and the snow 

 yet appears plainly enough here and there in great 

 white patches on the hillsides, it may seem like 

 angling in mid-winter. How widely different fly 



