32 APPROACHING THE WATER. 



overhanging stile at the extreme edge of the 

 water with arms necessarily waving as one 

 threads the line through the rings of the 

 spiked rod or still worse with one's shadow 

 extending in the form of a moving black bogey 

 right across the stream, is of course to proclaim 

 aloud to all the trout of over six inches that 

 their enemy has appeared and is about to 

 distribute his barbed confetti for their patronage. 



To start fishing after such a beginning by 

 steadily walking up stream, tramping perhaps 

 heavily through the rushes and making the 

 boggy and fibrous bank tremble, as it will do 

 for some feet ahead, and to throw at intervals 

 on the chuck and chance it principle, is to 

 raise the hue and cry twenty yards afield for 

 a mile at a time. 



And yet how many of us have done this, and 

 how many hundreds more will continue to do 

 it; and then after a trudge of four miles 

 occupying six hours along a stretch of good 

 water, will return home with semi-blistered palm 

 and aching heart to show two little herring-like 

 trout, deficient probably in sight and intelligence, 

 which are just over the limit. 



At the station, or the hotel, such a man 

 will meet we all have met a middle-aged 

 taciturn angler who was at that time sitting 

 moodily watching the water from ten yards 

 back in the bracken. * It has been a wretched 

 day ' we remark with assumed cheerfulness, 

 4 the fish will take nothing. I have only got 

 two, and my friend has hardly had a touch. 



