158 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



glassy stream that marks a large trout in flight before 

 an angler's shadow or figure or rod would be rarely 

 seen when he was standing or kneeling by the stream 

 and aiming his line. One might have fancied him 

 part of the natural scene, at which wild creatures 

 would no more take alarm than at straying cattle 

 hi the water meadows, or birds flying across the 

 stream. He seemed to fit naturally into the 

 landscape. 



His favourite trout were the very large, solitary 

 ones which live in sullen little backwaters, or weedy 

 ditches that fed the river. He believed that the 

 heaviest of these back-stream trout which he had 

 hooked was one he tried for a few minutes after I 

 had landed for him the five-pounder. We could 

 see the fish roaming about the shallows; its back 

 and bulky shoulders, and now and then its tail. 

 He hooked this great trout, throwing the fly with 

 his left hand right under his own bank. There was 

 a plunge and splash, the hook came away, the trout 

 of a lifetime was gone. But another time, with the 

 usual gossamer cast, he took a trout of six and a 

 quarter pounds weight in broad daylight by the 

 railway bridge. He told me it was rising close 

 to a hawthorn that overhung the water, and he had 

 to send a long line down stream, and let the current 

 " drift " the fly over the trout. This, perhaps, was 

 his masterpiece. He remembered it with more in- 

 terest, I think, than many a basket of trout weighing 



