MAY 135 



It is well, therefore, that there should occur some 

 obstacles to a conquest which were otherwise all too 

 easy. Of these, wind is the commonest, and it has 

 been peculiarly aggravating this season (1898). Sad, 

 sad the monotony with which the banks of Hertford- 

 shire and Hampshire streams re-echoed to one parti- 

 cular English monosyllable during the last week of 

 May. The wind swept down every reach and swirled 

 round every recess of the rivers, lifting the newly- 

 hatched flies from the water, scattering them far over 

 the fields, and tossing your airy make-believe into the 

 least accessible branches of willow and ash. There is 

 a good three -pounder lying where the stream ripples 

 softly over a waving ledge of water ranunculus, right 

 in the fair channel; you wait for a lull in the blast; 

 you measure your cast with three or four waves of 

 the rod, then, just at the critical moment of delivery, 

 Notus, or Auster. or Boreas (for they were all on the 

 rampage last week), swoops shrilly down and whirls 

 the line into the pollard on the far side of the 

 stream. 



When all goes smoothly one is apt to be touched 

 by remorse. Nobody has ever been known to hold 

 his hand in salmon-fishing, except by reason of sheer 

 bodily fatigue. But many a man must have felt 

 when trout are well on the mayfly orgy that he 

 wishes they would not be quite so simple. One 

 friend of mine declares that he means to fish with a 

 barbless hook that he is content if he can morally 

 ' bowl ' the big fellows. I don't feel that this puts the 



