BLANK DAYS. 77 



fault. You start badly, perhaps by putting up 

 your rod in too close proximity to the water, 

 and then cast at random expecting like 

 Micawber that something will turn up. You 

 remember an occasion when this happened, and 

 fatuously you continue to walk up the bank 

 casting, when, provided it is not too cold, you 

 had far better sit down and watch the water. 



But on some days as we say nothing happens : 

 one is obliged to stroll on. The best plan, if 

 there is no suspicion of a rise in the quieter 

 stretches, is to look out for a place where a fall 

 or a sharp run disturbs the stream and creates 

 eddies, swirls, and backwaters. Here again it 

 is better to wait and watch than to whip the 

 surface at once. 



Remember that good trout are especially fond 

 of lying just between the current and the back- 

 wash, in a place where floating or semi- 

 suspended matter will circle slowly round and 

 round among the bubbles. 



Good eyes and good observation will usually 

 detect an occasional suck by a trout which is 

 poised at an angle of 45 degrees, and which 

 always at much the same angle allows himself 

 to drift in a three foot circle. When looking 

 at such a place from a bridge on a non-fishing 

 day, or on to a piece of private water, I have 

 otften watched a trout for half an hour and 

 counted the number of times that he takes 

 something off the top of the water; and also 

 noticed the false rises he makes, merely bringing 

 his nose within an inch of the surface and then 



