326 SALMON AND TROUT. 



feel oppressed yourself, and hardly wonder that ' the springing 

 trout lies still.' Indeed it 'is a common apology for an empty 

 creel that ' there is thunder in the air.' 



But in truth when the storm actually breaks over you it 

 gives you a grand chance of sport. I shall never forget a short 

 bout of fishing which I enjoyed one evening just above Wans- 

 ford Bridge. I had been early on the stream, though well 

 aware from the aspect of the sky that my cake was dough till 

 the threatened elemental war was fairly let loose. I worked 

 my way doggedly down the beck, casting from time to time, as 

 on Sam Weller's theory I might have eaten oysters, 'out of 

 sheer desperation.' A few little fish I certainly took they 

 always will come when you have to put them back and one 

 solitary pounder, who must have been either eccentric or life- 

 weary to rise on such a day. 



But it was tedious work the heat oppressive, the air dead. 

 Even my attendant boy lost his faith in my star took short 

 cuts and long rests. I spun out my luncheon, smoked more 

 than was good for me, and though I still held on for the 

 heavier water below, I often doubted my weather forecast, and 

 wished myself ' taking mine ease in mine inn.' But the still- 

 ness was at last broken by distant mutterings of thunder ; the 

 clouds banked up higher and higher, and just as I had reached 

 the open water between Wansford mill and bridge the storm 

 was upon me, with deafening peals and a slanting deluge of 

 rain. Luckily I was waterproof, having one stiff cape over my 

 shoulders and another buckled round above my hips and pro- 

 tecting me as far as my knee-boots. 1 



The wind was too furious to permit casting, but as it blew 

 directly on my back I had simply to let out as much line as I 

 wanted and let it fall as I could. Never did I see good fish 

 rise so fast. The fly was seized as soon as it reached the water, 

 and the only difficulty in killing the fish lay in the violence of 

 the wind. In less than an hour and a half I basketed twenty- 



1 I recommend this plan to all anglers ; it is cooler than one long overcoat, 

 and throws off rain without confining the perspiration. 



