WINCHESTER 119 



generally went there on free afternoons, and 

 then only when, after finding no trout rising 

 in " Old Barge," we roamed about in the 

 vain hope that they might be rising some- 

 where else. 



These Winchester trout taught us the necessity 

 of using fine gut and small flies, and of floating 

 the fly accurately over a rising fish ; but they did 

 more than that, they taught us to expect success 

 only as the result of patience and hard work. 

 This was a valuable lesson, which made the 

 fishing in other waters seem easy by comparison. 

 A day on private water, where a feeding trout 

 might reasonably be expected to rise to the 

 first accurate cast was a glorious delight ; some- 

 thing to be thought about for days beforehand 

 and remembered long afterwards. In fly fishing, 

 except on very rare days, or on waters which are 

 really over-stocked and little fished, hard work 

 is needed to make a good basket ; and to have 

 been used to work hard and to expect little is 

 the best of training. The record of trout above 

 the limit of size (three-quarters of a pound) \/ 

 caught by me on the water described at Win- 

 chester, was in 1877 one trout, in 1878 thirteen 



