in MAY-DAY ON THE EXE 39 



with a dry fly, but have never yet induced 

 one of them to rise. A local expert once 

 told me that he had caught a trout of four 

 pounds in one of these pools some years ago ; 

 but somehow his methods of narrative were 

 not convincing. 



Even the small fish of the Exe are not to 

 be caught by throwing flies at them. Up- 

 stream must you fish, and hard must you 

 work, to basket two dozen, and the finest 

 tackle is none too fine. It is one of my 

 theories that they are harder to catch than 

 the trout of the Barle over in the next 

 valley, and that the reason of it is as follows. 

 A great deal of the bed of the Barle is 

 composed of rocks covered with dark water- 

 moss, and the result is that the water of the 

 Barle is in general darker than that of the 

 Exe, in which there is comparatively little 

 of this moss, and so the trout are more 

 readily taken in with artificial flies. But 

 whenever you do come across a patch of 

 this moss in the Exe, fish over it very care- 

 fully, and it is odds that your basket will be 

 the better for it. 



But while we have been gossiping our 

 light-hearted traveller has walked a good 



