CHAPTER IX 



THOUGHTS ON BIG FISH 



A TROUT is, I take it, a big one according to 

 circumstances. I have seen a man in one water- 

 shed with mouth open and eyes a-goggle on a fish of 

 one pound being produced for his inspection. On 

 another watershed I have seen the same man 

 carefully returning a fish of over that weight to the 

 stream with hardly a groan, or anyhow with no more 

 complaint than is permissible to a wet-fly fisher 

 newly introduced to a chalk stream. One's 

 memories of big ones, therefore, must necessarily be 

 coloured by the conditions in which they were 

 caught or seen in my case more often seen than 

 caught, and I think it is those that were merely 

 seen that have left the most piquant memory behind 

 them. 



I remember once taking a country walk with a 

 friend who is now dead. It was just a country walk 

 with no atmosphere of fishing about it. He was no 

 fisherman, and so far as I knew there were no trout 

 within miles. But it was lovely country and hot 

 summer and I was quite happy. About lunch time 



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