162 AN ANGLER AT LARGE 



my first of these trout on a large red Pennell, 

 and, having thus discovered the only fly that was 

 the slightest use, I stuck to it until my small 

 provision was threatened with exhaustion. This 

 disturbed me considerably, for I knew that none 

 of the other two gross of patterns which I had 

 bought before I left London were any good at all, 

 and my thoughts turned naturally to my new art 

 and my box of fly-tying apparatus. The second 

 of these I found had been left in England. The 

 first, however, was at my finger-tips, and my 

 materials were not difficult to get. Your true 

 fisherman can always find an expedient. I made 

 a red Pennell out of the hook of another fly, a 

 ryper, and some red worsted which I took from a 

 deep-sea spoon-bait which happened to be in my 

 fly-box. I found, too, some gay tinsel on a lamp- 

 shade in the drawing-room of my hostess. As my 

 copy differed slightly from the original I named it 

 The Unapproachable. Then I stepped calmly to 

 the edge of a bottomless lake and began to fish. 

 At the forty-second cast a 4-oz. char of incredible 

 bravery seized my masterpiece and attempted to 

 drag it into the depths. A gentle touch of the 

 wrist, and all was over. The char was in a bush 

 of bog-myrtle behind my back. I had caught a 

 fish upon a fly of my own making. 



The perfect thrill ? Well, I confess I was dis- 





