CHAPTER XVI 



The Great Unlanded 



The biggest fish are always lost. It is 

 almost a platitude to say so. But it is the 

 lost fish which, in a way, gives the true 

 angler his keenest delight, just as it gives him 

 also his greatest pain. It is a severe trial at 

 the time, and for a short while afterwards, 

 the losing of a heavy fish, the fish of the day, 

 of the season, perhaps even of a lifetime. 

 You return a dejected and, in cases where 

 you have blundered, a shamed man. It is not 

 until you have had dinner or supper, and have 

 blown forth some fragrant clouds of the sooth- 

 ing herb, that you can narrate the appall- 

 ing incident to your brother-anglers with any- 

 thing like a calm and unruffled demeanour. 

 Yet it is these very losses which in the end 



120 



