Notes and Sport of a Dry-Fit/ Purist. Ill 



with the fair result (considering the indifferent rise) 

 that two brace of 11 in. to 13 in. grayling were in the 

 creel by 2.15 p.m., when I left off fishing. 



On the 21st the wind was easterly, bitterly cold, 

 and no glimpse of sunshine cheered the landscape 

 or the solitary enthusiast who for an hour or two 

 in the afternoon visited the Cripstead fishery, and, 

 by making good practice over the grayling, soon 

 became indifferent to the weather. Its exact situation 

 is just below Winchester College meadows, between 

 the reach of the Itchen known as Chalkley's Water 

 and Captain the Honourable Ghiy V. Baring's St. 

 Cross preserves, and it is only in quite recent years 

 that grayling have located there the unwelcome 

 result of their introduction to the upper part of the 

 river, referred to before hundreds of them having 

 dropped down since ; when, as is their wont if in 

 congenial quarters, they breed very freely, crowd 

 out the trout, and spoil any fishery. Indeed, so 

 little are they appreciated as a sporting fish by the 

 rods renting this Cripstead water, that my invitation 

 was to "go there and kill all you can, large and 

 small." They were, however, only rising in one 

 place, namely, in the run of rough water from the 

 large sluices near the keeper's bungalow, and in 

 front of the sewage works. But at nearly every 

 throw over a splash or a ring made by a fish, one 

 was hooked, or missed, or sometimes broke away. 



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