TROUT-FISHING 

 "easy" one — ^that is, it lies close to the near bank, and therefore directly 

 above the angler, so that there is no chance of the fly dragging, which 

 is the evil that besets one casting a longish line athwart a full stream. 



Measuring the distance to a nicety, P. once more switches out the right 

 length of line; then pauses before delivering it till the trout, rising once 

 more betrays its exact position. Ha! there he is again. This time he poked 

 the tip of a broad snout half an inch above the surface. Ex pede Herculem — 

 he is a two -pounder for sure. Out goes the line, a gentle movement of 

 the wrist checks it at the moment of extension, causing the fly to drop 

 as lightly as a snow-flake six feet above the fish. The duns are floating 

 down more thickly now; the artificial sails among half a dozen naturals 

 right over the fish, which rises and sucks down one of the latter. P. re- 

 covers his line and times his second essay for the interval which gener- 

 ally separates the little companies of duns. Then he pops his red quill 

 over the fish as nearly as before; this time it has no living competitors; 

 exactly at the same spot there comes the most trifling stir in the water, 

 P. raises his rod point smartly and — bir-r-r-r goes the reel as the trout 

 dashes wildly into mid channel and twenty yards upstream. Note that 

 if the angler's finger had been upon the line at this moment as, in salmon- 

 fishing it ought to have been, the fine gut-cast would almost infallibly 

 have snapped under the sudden strain. More disasters happen to be- 

 ginners in dry-fly fishing from this cause than from any other; for although 

 a chalk-stream trout does not fight for life half so long or so wildly as do 

 natives of the colder waters of Scotland or Scandinavia, the terrified rush 

 when first hooked is about as trying to nerve and hand as any incident 

 in any kind of angling. Once tide that over, and it is surprising how soon 

 a south-country trout will succumb. 



Piscator was equal to the occasion, handling his fish very delicately 

 during the initial flurry; but the trout's next move was a more danger- 

 ous one. Turning suddenly, it dashed downstream past the angler, so 

 swiftly that reeling up was impossible; to keep the line taut he had to haul 

 in the slack with his hand. Next, having run downstream some distance, 

 the trout turned again as quickly as before and buried itself in a thick 

 blanket of weeds. There was only one course to follow now, and Piscator 

 took it, knowing that the manoeuvre which fills a beginner with despair 

 is not half so dangerous as it looks. In a lake where weeds lie all sorts of 

 ways, it is almost impossible to extract a heavy fish that has run to them 

 for refuge; but in a full-flowing stream the weed-tresses are all neatly 



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