204 RIVERS; AND HOTEL FISHINGS. 



for this river, I have known it for fifteen years 

 and never seen such a basket.' * Ah, very 

 likely ' he replied ' my friend is a splendid 

 fisherman.' 



The river the preceding day was full and 

 highly coloured. I myself had seen both men 

 fishing downstream, apparently with three flies; 

 casting them out in the orthodox March manner, 

 and allowing them to come round under one's 

 own bank, then stepping forward a pace and 

 repeating the process. How the art of being 

 a splendid fisherman preserved those flies from 

 being taken by the five and six ounce trout, 

 which had so readily come to mine, is beyond 

 any theory I can advance. But the two men 

 had seen the fish weighed at the hotel. Mine 

 I never thought of weighing, but would have 

 bet a sovereign they did not exceed five pounds. 

 Here then is one of the disappointments one 

 has to put up with, to find all records of a 

 river, even its summer records, broken in early 

 March by a comparative stranger to the water. 



At Easter last year a friend who owns perhaps 

 the best mile of the river saw * four fish 

 caught in one day each one over a pound * 

 taken by perhaps the best known angler 

 either wet or dry in Devonshire. The same 

 rod, later in the year, * caught twelve averaging 

 nearly three quarters of a pound in July.' The 

 largest trout caught on his water to his know- 

 ledge was 2 Ibs. 2j oz. 



