SMALL WATERS AND TYPICAL DAYS 53 



skins overnight in readiness for the opening meet ; 

 the shooting man sorting out cartridges on the eve of 

 the Twelfth or the First, will certainly comprehend me. 

 It is true that the angler is in a measure always in 

 season. Beginning with salmon and trout, he can 

 ring the changes on grayling, pike, perch, and other 

 coarse fish till Valentine's Day comes round again, 

 and so in a way have a relay of Firsts. 



It is on a day like this that lessons are learned. 

 In preparing for it you will find out if the line had 

 not been dried before it was last used, and so through 

 every item of tackle. As the rod is removed from the 

 bag, the winch from its case, and the boxes of tackle 

 are opened, testimony is borne either to the angler's 

 care or neglect, and it is thus that the fisherman 

 in time learns that one of the most important duties 

 he has to perform is at all times and seasons to see 

 that his tackle, to the minutest item, is kept in order. 



For many years it was my custom to wet the pike- 

 line somewhere about Michaelmas, and one of my 

 remembrances of such a time was on a lake of some 

 seventy acres, not far from the spot where John 

 Hampden, riding over the Chilterns with his fatal 

 wound, ended a patriot's career. There had been a 

 white frost that rendered fishing hopeless until the 



