FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 by ancient oaks. The opening I had selected, one of the few places where 

 one could cast out a line into the water, gave one an enchanting view 

 of wood and water, with blue smoke curling lazily from the fine chimney 

 of a real old Elizabethan manor. My friend had selected a spot on the 

 opposite side farther down the pond, and was almost hidden by the reeds 

 growing out of the water and the branches coming down to meet them; 

 but I could see the cloud of smoke when he lit a pipe, and the top joint of 

 his rod pointing across the water to where his red -shouldered float, 

 gently pulled by the line, slanted its white tip back towards the angler. 

 (In fishing for carp in clear water no float should be used; see Mr Over- 

 beck's account of his capture of great carp later on.) My own float was 

 soon well out in the pool with plenty of gut line on the bottom, so that 

 any carp searching for worm, or berry, or bit of soft root, might not be 

 made suspicious by suspended bait or shotted line. A bit of bough pro- 

 jecting from the water made a convenient rest for the middle of the light 

 twelve-foot rod, the butt resting on the bank. The reel, a light Nottingham, 

 holding one hundred yards of fine undressed green silk plaited line, with 

 the thirty yards or so next the fioat rubbed with *' mucilin " or " gis- 

 hurstine " to make it fioat on the water. In carp angling it is most impor- 

 tant to have a free line— -quite as much so as when you are expecting a 

 big trout, which you know to be feeding thirty yards away from his home, 

 is going to take your mayfiy which the stream is bringing straight over 

 his nose. The first rush of a good carp when he feels the hook is a thing 

 to remember and to be prepared for. As I was watching a steel blue 

 dragonfly balancing himself on the top of my float I heard a shout 

 from my friend, and was just in time to see a wave caused by the rapid 

 passage of a big fish just under the surface, and then a swirling hole and 

 a yellow gleam of scales. Then the fioat falling back and lying fiat on the 

 water, showed that the big fish had broken the gut above the shot. My 

 friend is a philosopher, but his philosophy did not allow him to renew 

 his tackle immediately. For some time I noticed his float lying supinely 

 where the carp had left it. After lighting his pipe as he sat on a handy 

 friendly fallen tree, with arms akimbo and one leg across the other, he 

 seemed lost in contemplation. 



SIZE OF C3ARP AND SOME CAPTURES OF GREAT FISH 



One of the most interesting accounts of angling for carp I have ever 

 224 



