CLEAR WATERS 



upon the finest gut. The partridge-green comes back 

 to me as a Tal-y-llyn favourite, as it is on so many other 

 Welsh lakes. On favourable days we generally had 

 some ten pounds, or about twenty fish, to the boat of 

 two rods firm, well-conditioned, hard-fighting fish 

 too. A modest-seeming haul, no doubt, to the wan- 

 derer by far-off, less sophisticated, and more highly 

 appraised waters. But then, after all, there is some 

 satisfaction in killing sophisticated fish, while as for 

 environment you might range the three kingdoms in 

 vain for a more perfect beauty spot than this secluded 

 little lake resting so bewitchingly in the lap of Cader. 

 There had been up to that time, I think, no re-stocking, 

 an omission, if indeed such it is (a rather open question), 

 that has no doubt been since remedied. A pounder 

 was my best fish during that May, and I remember it 

 very well as I was alone in the boat, and a gale raising 

 high waves was fast driving me on to a rocky shore. 

 The Tal-y-llyn boats, to be sure, were not easily staved 

 in, an advantage which was less apparent when you 

 had to scull them back after each drift for three- 

 quarters of a mile into the teeth of a west wind. But 

 these things lent variety, and even at times excite- 

 ment, to the rather even placidity of lake trouting 

 from a boat. 



A little later in that same year I found myself afloat 

 on Lake Vyrnwy, that five-mile stretch of water which 

 the Liverpool corporation have dammed back into 

 the wild heart of the Berwyn mountains. I did not 

 enjoy that so well, though the expense, and not per- 

 haps without justification, was about twice and a half 

 as much again. This was not altogether because the 

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