WADING. 115 



To set off up the river at seven o'clock in 

 June or July with a tried and trusted friend, 

 and to meet the returning holiday angler 

 hurrying back to the apartment supper, and thus 

 leaving the field in peace, constitutes a pleasure 

 composed of little or no alloy. 



******** 



It is a left bank water with a public footpath 

 -extending for two miles, before you come to the 

 small bridge half hidden by the trees, and the 

 notice board with the variegated fate awaiting 

 trespassers engraven upon it. All this lovely 

 stretch of river is slightly affected by the tide, 

 the stickles being drowned during the hours of 

 high water; and, during spring tides being 

 quite unfishable excepting for peal. As the 

 course of the river is roughly north and south, 

 the bank angler has all the glow of the western 

 sky behind him, thus giving a warning 

 silhouette to the few and wary trout who venture 

 forth after their prey like the lions in the 

 psalms. This is where wading does something 

 to equalise the chance of a heavy fish finding 

 itself upon a cool plate in the larder when man 

 goeth forth to his work and to his labour on 

 the following morning. 



At its summer level, the river is fordable in 

 many places for knee high rubber boots ; and 

 at exactly eight o'clock the passage is attempted, 

 with much probing with the landing net handle, 

 and much balancing on slimy stones, before a 

 stand is taken up on the narrow beach or fringe 

 of rushes, with its background of red cliff or 



