Dibbing with the Dry-fly 67 



of undergrowth, beds of gigantic docks, 

 nettles, and various water-loving plants. To 

 press through this mass is quite a business, 

 seeing that many of the plants grow six feet 

 and even seven feet high. But a careful 

 study of the place has enabled me to easily 

 find my way to all the backwaters and eddies 

 which abound on one side of the island. 

 Once in may-fly season, when the drake was 

 on in countless thousands and was being 

 utterly rejected by the trout, I hooked and 

 lost three fish in the space of half an hour 

 dibbing from this island. A fifth fish, the 

 smallest of the lot, I killed with my last 

 olive dun. There is one backwater off^ the 

 island which formerly was fishable from the 

 mainland ; but an alder-tree has fallen into 

 the pool, and rendered casting with short or 

 long line quite impossible. The pool is deep 

 and sluggish, retaining for a long while, when 

 the river is low, all surface food washed 

 thither out of the strong current. At mid- 

 summer I left an olive in a beautiful trout of 

 about one pound or one pound and a quarter. 



