96 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



3. A CURIOUS CONTRAST. 



It is one of the charms of fly fishing that no two days 

 are exactly alike, however closely the weather conditions 

 may seem to correspond. This is an account of two con- 

 secutive spring days on the Itchen which presented a 

 remarkable contrast. 



I have long had an affection for the large dark olive, 

 and as it is seldom seen on the Itchen after mid-April I 

 determined, in spite of a keeper's warning that the trout 

 had not yet begun to get under the banks, to snap a couple 

 of days by the water-side, and I chose Wednesday and 

 Thursday, April 9 and 10. Tuesday, the 8th, did not give 

 me much encouragement, for it was a bitter day of north- 

 east wind, and, indeed, that wind had been prevailing 

 for nigh a week. It was therefore more for the pleasure 

 of stretching a line against the wind with my ten-foot 

 Leonard than with any expectation of sport that I strolled 

 into the meadows at about 10.30, fortified by waders 

 and a mackintosh against the icy wind which blew dead 

 down-stream. But by the time I had assembled my rod 

 and had passed the line through the rings I saw, to my 

 astonishment, a large dark olive skating along the surface, 

 propelled by the wind at more than the natural pace 

 of the stream, and before eleven o'clock the first rise 

 was in evidence ; and very soon I was ware of no . less 

 than three trout on the feed in the short stretch which 

 was in sight. I watched them carefully to see if they 

 were taking the surface duns, and soon made up my mind 

 that they were not. So I knotted on a wet pattern of the 

 large dark olive, and began with No. 1. He, however, 

 was " not taking any," and the same was true of No. 2. 

 The light, indeed, was a bad light — a sort of dull leaden 

 colour in sky and on the water, but everything looking 



