A DAY ON THE OLD WEST RIVER 105 



pression. I have walked along it when Nature has been in 

 her most joyous mood, and the birds singing from every 

 hedgerow, and I have seen shoals of huge bream basking 

 or swimming on the surface, bream that would put their 

 brethren of the Ouse to shame as far as size is concerned. 

 Then here and there one could see the darker stripe of our 

 old friend the perch, as he made the bleak fly all over the 

 place ; and now and again the reeds and flags would 

 suddenly move as a good jack struck away into deeper 

 water, alarmed at my too close proximity. One or two 

 of the knowing Ely roach fishermen, although they have 

 a much larger stream close to their very doors, prefer to 

 travel to this place ; as one of them, a railway inspector, 

 remarked to me about the last time I saw him, " When 

 I want big roach I don't stop at home, no fear, I go to 

 Earith Bridge, and fish the Old West." This river is 

 called the Old West River, and seems, as far as I can see, 

 to run in a sort of half-circle, leaving the Hundred Foot 

 at Earith Bridge, and running back again into the Great 

 Ouse somewhere between Ely and Cambridge. 



Anyhow, the stretch from Earith to Haddenham engine 

 house is long and good, and very few indeed were the 

 anglers I ever saw at work on it. We will take a big can 

 of dace and start by the roadside just beyond a little pool 

 that is situated at the foot of a small cottage garden. 

 We know this water well, and by experience can recommend 

 a light ten-foot three-joint jack rod, a four-inch reel, and 

 the fifty yards of undressed silk recommended in previous 

 chapters. Yes, and the nature of the place for miles tells 

 me that a paternoster is the tackle to employ, because the 

 water in the first place is not very deep ; in the second it 

 is not out-of-the-way wide ; and in the third there are 

 reed beds, bunches of flags, old lily pads, and one thing or 

 another in profusion. Those plants that grow along these 

 fen streams, and have such a lovely crown of red flowers, 

 are here in all their bewitching loveliness and in great 

 plenty. Moorhens scutter from under your very feet, 



