92 AN ANGLER'S YEAR 



Gnat. Putting up one of the well-known Hungerford 

 patterns, I dropped it over the fish, and up he came and 

 took it, a nice-conditioned trout of l|lb. 



How that fish did fight! winding himself and the line 

 into the weeds which surrounded him on all sides. 

 Keeping a firm hold, I waded up, and by stirring the 

 fish up with the handle of the landing-net succeeded in 

 bringing him into view and quickly into the net. But, 

 alas, the Spent Gnat was evidently not medicine for all 

 the trout, although the dace admired it greatly, making 

 the most futile attempts to get it down and bedraggling 

 it every cast long before it could be taken by a trout, 

 unless it were put right over the spot where he was 

 suspected to be feeding. 



At lunch time my friend and self compared notes, 

 He had taken a trout of IJlb. on the Mayfly, and I one 

 of Iflb. on the Spent Gnat. Dace innumerable had 

 been hooked and landed, and we had taken about a 

 dozen undersized trout between us. However, we 

 comforted ourselves with the idea that when the rise 

 came on the true Kennet leviathans would feed. About 

 four o'clock the fly came up thickly, but the rise of fish 

 grew less. At the upper end of the water my comrade 

 took a 1^-pounder, a chub, a roach, and several dace, 

 while below I continued to capture dace, with an 

 occasional undersized trout. Several other rods were 

 fishing the water with similar want of success, and 

 yet at the same time the day before one rod had 

 taken four and a half brace of 2-pounders, and been 

 broken up several times, so he said, with better fish. 



This reminds one, by-the-bye, of an interesting occur- 

 rence which throws some light upon the fish one loses 

 during the mayfly rise, and other matters. I have men- 

 tioned that in the morning I took a trout of Iflb. ; 

 when I got home I gave this fish to a friend, who, in the 

 course of a day or two, returned to me a mayfly which 

 the cook had found in the gullet when cleaning the fish. 

 It was certainly not the fly the fish was captured with, 

 as it had an Egyptian Goose wing, whereas the fish 

 was taken on the Spent Gnat, and the wing of the May- 



