150 AN ANGLER'S HOURS ix 



late in the season. Last September, on this 

 same stream, rather higher up, a man caught 

 some beautiful dace while grayling-fishing. 

 Three of them were over a pound. But 

 such good fortune has never attended me 

 here. 



Just as we are fastening the lid of the 

 creel a great " plop " causes us to start, and 

 we turn our eyes to the river just in time to 

 see the great swirl where some monster rose 

 at the extreme corner of the eddy. That 

 fish is an old I cannot say friend, for I have 

 never actually seen him but at any rate an 

 old acquaintance. He was here last year in 

 the same spot, and rising in the same 

 tumultuous fashion. Oddly enough he only 

 rose about once in every two hours, always 

 with the same heavy plunge. No efforts of 

 mine (and I spent the greater part of a day 

 over him) could persuade him to come up 

 to an artificial fly. I was convinced at the 

 time that he was a colossal trout, but the 

 interval of a year has given time for calm 

 deliberation, and now I think he is probably 

 a pike. That would explain his desultory 

 behaviour ; for a pike, though he will rise 

 now and then at a May-fly (possibly out of 



