290 WHAT I HAVE SEEN WHILE FISHING 



me creels full of their plucky diminutive trout, and 

 the Test has added many a dozen of grayling to 

 my long score of captures. 



On the banks of the Trent I have tried my 

 hand among the roach, chub and barbel ; and in 

 a flat-bottomed, equilateral triangle-shaped boat, 

 locally called a raft, I have sat many a night out 

 on the breamy Bedford Ouse, with a lantern fixed 

 in each of the two angles facing the stream, the 

 third angle, or point, being pushed into the sedges, 

 which, fostered by the muddy banks and sluggish 

 stream, grow to an extraordinary height. 



On the Norfolk Broads I have spent a week 

 or two vainly trying to secure one of the mighty 

 pike or perch which we hear so much of and 

 seldom see. Many health-giving days have I 

 passed on the Lea, but I must confess that the 

 canny fish of that river have suffered little diminu- 

 tion by my skill. 



I am at home on the banks of the Colne, 

 whether it be Hythe End, Wraysbury, Horton 

 Mill, Poyle Mill, Longford or Harmondsworth 

 (the two last places are not so famous for fish as 

 for fish-poachers ; here the latter are to be found 

 as clever as generations of judicious marriages 

 between the poaching inhabitants of the two 

 villages, and constant exercise of their skill can 

 make them ; and their cleverness is likely to be 

 maintained, as a certain amount of practice is 

 assured to them by kingly charters) at Hubert de 



