xiii THE MIDLAND BROOK 225 



pounds above are in consequence stagnant and 

 also weedy in parts, but they are fairly deep, 

 in places as much as five feet, and they hold 

 the largest trout in the brook. The lower 

 one widens out to about thirty feet close to 

 the mill, and is some forty yards long. The 

 other is longer, narrower, and deeper. It is 

 not of much use to fish them in the daytime, 

 but in the evening a fish or two may be found 

 rising round the hatch-hole above the weir, 

 or at the top end where the water is shallower. 

 Then a fly at the end of a long line may 

 tempt a heavy fish. In the daytime the best 

 places to fish will be the little weir-pools 

 and the backwaters below them, because the 

 main current of the brook runs by this 

 channel now that the mills are not working. 

 The weirs are the choicest spots of all, so we 

 will make our way to the lower one first. 



At first sight it does not look promising 

 for fishing. From the mill-pound it is a 

 drop of about six feet to the pool below, and 

 the angler finds that the wall above is the 

 only point from which he can possibly fish, 

 for the weir-pool is a sort of arbour framed 

 in bushes, through which no human in- 

 genuity could insinuate a rod unless an axe 



Q 



