CLEAR WATERS 



you could drag yourself up the densely fringed steep 

 bank of the Avon when you felt in the mood for a rest 

 or were confronted with deep water. You could cram 

 your rod, basket, and landing-net somehow through the 

 thick frieze of tree roots, saplings, and briars, and 

 achieve the upper air and a grassy resting-place. The 

 last time, however, I battled with these rough rocks 

 and swift currents, the swifter on that occasion for 

 April rains, all old avenues of escape were destroyed, 

 the natural chevaux de /rise being everywhere en- 

 twined with barbed wire ; and when all further 

 progress up the river was barred by some deep pool, 

 you were virtually imprisoned in a cul-de-sac. There 

 was nothing for it but to wade wearily down again 

 over the waters you had just fished, and clamber out 

 into the upper air at the point from which you de- 

 scended into it. 



This waste of time and energy is particularly annoy- 

 ing in spring fishing, if the trout happen to be on the 

 rise. For, unless the season be very forward, a great 

 objection to spring trouting in my opinion in this class 

 of river is that the rise, though sometimes furious and 

 uncritical, is usually limited to an hour or two, leaving 

 those before and afterwards a rather weary blank of 

 futile casting upon dour waters. Every fisherman, 

 of course, knows this, and furthermore that you can 

 never be certain when that brief but blithesome 

 interlude will take place, to say nothing of the possi- 

 bility of its never turning up at all, though this last, 

 of course, is all in the angler's business. It is tolerably 

 certain that it will occur between eleven and four, and 

 in rivers like the Avon one is constantly haunted by 

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