SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 159 



The wind was then blowing briskly from the south, with 

 a faint shade of east in it, and in gusts. Fortunately its 

 general trend was upstream, and it served the length I 

 meant to fish fairly well, and I needed nothing more 

 powerful than my five-ounce nine-footer. My friend, 

 who accompanied me, was very depressed at the strength of 

 the wind and its obvious disinclination to drop spent at 

 sunset. But I recalled my experience of the preceding 

 year (repeated two or three times since) with a view to 

 comforting him, and he decided to stay on, though a 

 very doubting Thomas. 



We waited on our separate beats, with such patience as 

 we could muster, from seven to half-past eight. The wind 

 certainly moderated a little, but it still blew briskly and 

 gustily, shifting a shade more to the east. About half -past 

 eight a small hatch of small pale watery olive, with an 

 admixture of July dun and of spinners, including some 

 jenny spinners, came down, and a quiet protected corner 

 enabled me to identify them. 



A fish or two began to take quietly, some clearly taking 

 spinners, others nymphs of the pale watery olive, and oc- 

 casionally the hatched fly. Soon a big splurging rise said 

 plainly " blue- winged olive," and, knotting on a nymph 

 pattern with which I had been successful last year, I cast 

 to the fish. He came up at length and missed. In the 

 meantime another fish, two or three yards ahead, had 

 risen somewhat in the same way; but I suspected grayling, 

 and sure enough a few moments later an unmistakable 

 forked tail appeared and sent me on to the next fish. This 

 was rising in a corner, and was, I judged, taking small 

 spinner of some kind. He would not have my Blue-winged 

 Olive nymph, so I tried him in succession with Tup's 

 Indispensable and Jenny spinner. He came at both and 

 missed. Then he took a blue-winged olive with the 



