202 RIVERS; AND HOTEL FISHINGS. 



can claim at least to have named almost all. 

 The temptation to spend money on side issues 

 is removed. There is no pier, no concert hall, 

 no cinema palace, often indeed no billiard room. 



The holiday angler therefore, unlike the 

 visitor at a fashionable seaside resort, should be 

 able to work to the strictly moderate estimate 

 he put down, for contingencies, before starting. 

 Whether the river he fishes in is good or bad, 

 whether the days are cold or kind, whether his 

 hand is ' in ' or not, whether his health at the 

 time is normal or below par, the man who 

 returns from a fly fishing holiday to the City 

 generally does so with his head full of the 

 improved plans he will elaborate for his next 

 holiday. Nothing is quite like it. Nothing 

 is so restful. Nothing is so exciting. Nothing 

 so delightful to look forward to or to look 

 back upon. Of course a distinct pull that the 

 fly fisherman has is his indifference to wet 

 weather. During the whole of a drizzly spring, 

 when hardly a day passes that can be termed 

 anything but doubtful, we are as happy as the 

 cattle, provided the river is not in flood. When 

 the tennis court or the cricket pitch is sodden, 

 the water is often in its finest condition, and 

 trout in their most generous mood. 



Devonshire rivers with gravelly beds are often 

 most favourable for wet fly fishing, during 

 March and April, when the water is beer 

 coloured. On such days between ten o'clock 

 and three I have seen many takes of twenty 

 trout, averaging a full seven ounces; which 



