l6 CATCHING THE WILY SEA-TROUT 



weed, were two of the finest sea-trout I have seen. 

 Calling my wife, we took up positions well behind the pair 

 and studied them for a considerable time. Their beautiful 

 silvery livery denoted that they were fresh-run and I 

 estimated that each fish was between eight and ten 

 pounds in weight. I wondered whether they were 

 spawning bent, but, apart from an almost imperceptible 

 movement of their fins, they were motionless and ap- 

 parently were indifferent to their confines. How they 

 had entered this narrow and shallow course was a mystery 

 to me, as, for months, no appreciable rain had fallen, 

 and merely a mud patch connected the channel to the 

 river. 



Day after day, for more than a week, I visited the 

 entrancing scene and found the two fish ever in the same 

 place. There was no legitimate method of catching 

 them, and to deal with them ignominiously did not 

 appeal to me : such an act would have been similar to 

 that employed by a " sportsman " whom I once met 

 and who, failing to sprinkle bolting rabbits with his gun, 

 shot, at short range, a wretched trapped one and carried 

 it as proof of his prowess until somebody naively drew 

 his attention to the fact that the rabbit, with a smashed, 

 bleeding and dangling leg, had very recently been 

 removed from a gin. 



One nlorning, on paying my self-appointed routine call 

 to the rhine, I received an unpleasant surprise : the two 

 fish had disappeared and, though I carefully scrutinised 

 the water from end to end, there was no sign of the 

 beauties. I was satisfied that no one had taken the 

 fish, as the marsh is far removed from habitation, and is 

 not frequented by anglers, workmen or walkers. Some- 

 how the pair had regained the river. 



That evening an angler, a stranger to the district, 

 fishing for sea-trout within a hundred yards of where the 



