208 HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



A curious incident marked my second visit to this 

 cliff lake. Somewhat to my surprise I had fished for 

 more than half an hour without a rise, and had nearly 

 reached the limits of my patience when I felt a heavy 

 strain, and really thought that I had at last hooked the 

 patriarch of the lake. Judge of my surprise when on 

 bringing the fish on the top dropper to the surface, I 

 perceived that there was also a fish on each of the other 

 two flies. I carefully climbed down to the water's edge, 

 and more by good luck than good guidance managed 

 to land all three. The two top ones I scooped into 

 the net, and half lifted, half dragged, the bottom one 

 on to a shelving slab of rock. I have often before 

 caught two trout at a time, and occasionally three, 

 but they have generally been small ones. I never 

 before got three at a time averaging a pound each. 

 But the remarkable thing about this particular large 

 draft of fishes was that it was preceded and followed 

 by absolute stagnation ; such double or treble events 

 usually come when there is a strong rise, and fish are 

 competing with one another to be the first to secure 

 a fly. 



On another occasion I managed at last to get four 

 or five fish out of the big lake below Svart Snuta, but 

 they were poor half-starved creatures with long thin 

 bodies and big heads, good neither for food nor sport. 

 On that morning Lort Phillips and a companion had 

 walked with me as far as the foot of the precipice, 

 and then climbed to the- top. While I was lazily 

 reclining on the heather enjoying my sandwich, I 

 heard a signal whistle, and looking up, could just 

 distinguish two moving dots upon the sky-line. I 

 watched while the climbers, as usual, rolled big boulders 



