A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



of domestic economy as we paddled leisurely to a favourite 

 haunt of ours where we had decided to begin operations. 

 There was just wind enough to carry a light blow-line, and 

 fleecy clouds tempered the sun's rays, and prevented that 

 glare on the water which is one of the dapper's inconveniences. 

 We started fishing. Danny was in the bows, within a stone's 

 throw of the shore. He wanted to turn the boat's nose out 

 to sea, but I was lazy, and insisted on starting as we were. 

 I was sitting in the stern with my flies in my hand drinking in 

 the beauty of the morning, and watching the effects of light 

 and shade caused by the slowly moving clouds in the Camintha 

 Hills opposite, when something impelled me to look in Danny's 

 direction. As I looked, his fly vanished with scarcely a ripple. 

 It was a rise ! Danny struck, and almost instantly a huge fish 

 flung himself out of the water, so close to me that I could hear 

 the whirring of his fins, and plunged in again with a spout of 

 spray like a diving pelican. A Homeric battle then began. 

 My laziness bore at once its retributive fruit. The boat was 

 lying the wrong way. We were in an exceedingly tight place, 

 close inshore and surrounded by rocks and clumps of up- 

 standing reeds. The trouble was of my own making, and I 

 had to get out of it. Danny said nothing — the occasion was 

 too solemn for words — but sat quite still and played his fish 

 like the consummate artist he is. Eventually I got the boat 

 round, and manoeuvred her out into the open, thanks indeed 

 to luck rather than to skill, while all the time the fish raced and 

 jumped and dived to the bottom, and shot up again, and 

 twisted and turned and threw somersaults, and did all those 



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