A GRAYLING DAY 157 



themselves, monsters of their kind. This is 

 a big river, and the grayling rise all over the 

 wide bits, which are unwadeable in parts, needing 

 long casting. A split-cane rod with a history 

 extending over a quarter of a century, and, to 

 tell the truth, only the middle joint of the 

 original. There are memories of the old butt, 

 which used to spring differently from this one, 

 nearer to the hand. That butt was smashed 

 in Breconshire, the day when I was carried 

 off my feet, wading in the Usk, and fell into 

 deep water, still gripping the rod (like a fool), 

 and the butt broke between two rocks. The 

 two original tops went in Brittany, not a fishing 

 incident that time, but a smash when coasting 

 downhill on a bicycle. You cannot break good 

 split- cane by fair usage. The middle joint was 

 only wounded, not beyond repair, in that smash. 

 Once that joint took its part in the greatest ex- 

 ploit of this special rod, the landing of a six and 

 a half-pound salmon in a river on the West 

 coast of Scotland, a very " red " and very sulky 

 autumn fish that took a small sea-trout fly. 

 The fly- and cast-box also has its history ; it 

 was designed specially and given to me years 

 a g by the best fisherman I know, at his wedding, 

 when I was his " best man," a position I could 

 not claim by the riverside. But the reel has 



