no AN ANGLER'S HOURS vn 



beams for the last time before it joins a 

 river still greater a mile lower down, and it 

 celebrates its last victory over the obstacles 

 opposed to it by man in a fine turmoil of 

 foam. Then the main current sweeps 

 grandly across the pool to its channel below, 

 leaving behind it two enormous eddies, one 

 on each side. A finer pool for pike-fishing 

 it would be impossible to conceive ; the 

 bottom is all of gravel, and the supply of 

 fish seems inexhaustible. No matter how 

 many may be caught one day, the next finds 

 the pool re-stocked, for it is the Mecca of 

 all the pike in many miles of the parent 

 river. Of this fact Old Billy is well 

 aware, and he regards the fish from a base, 

 matter-of-fact point of view ; his avowed 

 object is always to kill as many as he can. 

 That is why he desired me to fish with 

 trimmers to-day, a suggestion which I 

 sternly put away. Trimmers are, in the 

 first place, an abomination. In the second 

 place, they are large discs of cork painted on 

 the one side white and on the other red ; 

 a stick runs through them, and a line is 

 wound round them, and they are sent out 

 with a live-bait to fish by themselves with 



