Notes and Sport of a Dry -Fly Purist. 197 



-experts have a favourite pattern on which they 

 much rely. 



Of the Thames trout-fishing it may be said that 

 on the opening day the prospects of sport are not 

 usually very great, for the weather is often cold 

 .and unsettled ; the poet's invocation : 



Come, gentle Spring ! ethereal mildness, come, 

 And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud, 

 While music wakes around, veiled in a shower 

 Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend, 



is but coyly listened to, nor as yet answered in 

 effect. 



The trout are only beginning by short daily 

 .stages, often resting between, to work up stream to- 

 wards the weirs from their winter haunts ; from 

 under shelving banks, or from near their forsaken 

 .spawning redds. Nor are many of the small fish, 

 minnows, bleak, dace, gudgeon, &c., on which trout 

 feed as yet showing themselves. 



These considerations, however, do not discourage 

 keen anglers a small but devoted band from 

 risking the weather and turning out in a punt on 

 most reaches of the river between Teddington and 

 Pinkhill weirs, attended by a professional fisherman, 

 who probably says he knows exactly where a fish 

 has been seen to spring out and scatter the fright- 

 ened bleak, &c., before him ; but failing that place all 

 other likely ones are spun over. The man whose 



