CHAPTER XII. 



GRAYLING FISHING. 



jRAYLING have one advantage over trout in that they extend 

 your fishing season by at least three months. Whereas 

 trout may be called spring and summer fish, grayling are 

 autumn and winter fish. While trout love positions under 

 overhanging banks, or in the side runs by the bank side, 

 grayling, on the other hand, generally occupy positions in 

 mid-stream, lying near, or on, the bottom. In rivers that 

 contain both fish, a bank rise may be generally put down 

 to a trout. I would have substituted the word " confi- 

 dently" for "generally," had not a very competent critic 

 placed a marginal note to my MS., stating that "he would it were so." 



I can well recall a day on lower Testwater when, in October, on 

 a wild, squally day, with gusty rain, I was endeavouring to beguile 

 some imprudent grayling into taking my fly. The river keeper accom- 

 panied me, and together we descried a nice dimpling rise against the 

 far bank, above a plank bridge. I at once put it down as a trout, and 

 was for leaving it alone ; but my keeper friend would not have it so, 

 and on persuasion I proffered the fish the fly that happened to be on 

 my line. As luck would have it the fly pitched fairly accurately, and, 

 nicely cocked, sailed down the bank side just where the rise had been. 

 A confident rise produced an equally confident turn of the wrist ; our 

 friend was well hooked, and a merry five minutes we had before he could 

 be beguiled into the landing net. He proved to be a fine trout, over 



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