108 WHERE TO FISH. 



can feel sure that a good fish which you have 

 pricked or lost on Monday; and mean to 

 revisit on Wednesday, has not succumbed to 

 another man's fly in the meantime. 



One great difficulty is to keep your little 

 preserve secret; that is if you happen to know 

 other rods and are in the helpless position of 

 having to run the fire of cross questioning that 

 the exhibition of any decent brace of trout 

 always invites. One can parry this ordeal with 

 strangers without giving offence or illtreating 

 truth ; but the desperate inquisitiveness of 

 neighbours is a more difficult matter to evade. 

 They want to know when, where and how you 

 managed to get leave; where you put up; 

 whether they may share a trap to the same or 

 an adjacent place. They generally succeed in 

 worming the small discovery from you, and 

 chart it accurately upon their survey for 

 annexation. You do not like to own to the 

 modest finesse employed in attaining your object, 

 to the ground baiting used in the form of fowls 

 bought from the farmer's wife for the proprietor 

 as often as not declines a money payment or 

 rabbits left at the house during the preceding 

 autumn or winter. 



A friend, who I know will read these lines, 

 wrote me accounts at intervals during a whole 

 season of sport he was enjoying in a place such 

 as I allude to. The water consisted of a dam, 

 a mill leet, a small run, and a bathing pool on 

 a river where half pounders were always 

 respected. Week after week he managed to 



