CHAPTER VII 



A Seven-Pounder 



The place of all places for very heavy trout, 

 for great lusty fellows which may be relied 

 upon when hooked to make the reel sing a 

 merry tune to commence with, and to make 

 the exasperated angler curse the maker 

 of his gut-casts to end with, is a sedately 

 flowing, clear brook in the land of chalk 

 streams, where weed-cutting is rarely resorted 

 to, and where no artificially reared trout are 

 ever put into the water. A quarter of a 

 century or so since a friend made the glorious 

 discovery, in one of the home counties, of a 

 stretch of trouting water which he saw might 

 be turned into an admirable fly-fishing club 

 for a dozen rods. He got a lease of it at a 

 very moderate figure, and set to work to put 



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