178 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



was room below for the normal chalk-stream tactics, and 

 I combed my fish down, and I netted him out from below 

 the tussock from which the successful cast had been 

 delivered. I guessed him at close on two pounds. The 

 keeper's scales said two pounds exactly. 



Incidentally I got that other fish — but that is another 

 story. 



I was down again on the water on September 1, and 

 I met one of the rods. " By the way/' he said, " that 

 qualified trout of yours above the willow-bush at the 

 Moor drain was pegging away as hard as ever as I came 

 down." "That is strange," said I; "I was under the 

 impression that my family had eaten him, and I certainly 

 knocked him on the head and brought him in. However, 

 I will investigate the phenomenon." 



It was all right. Crouched low behind the same old 

 tussock with the same old willow as a background for the 

 same old suit, I watched what might have been the same 

 old trout making the same old circuit over the same old 

 beat. And as he took a natural fly near the top limit, 

 the same old rod delivered a little Red Sedge as if it had 

 dropped off the tussock hard by on to the water. The 

 greedy neb reached for it, and I responded in the same 

 old manner. Off flashed the fish down-stream. But I 

 plunged into the marsh with rod hooped and held low. 

 Step for step, incident for incident, the battle pursued the 

 identical course of the just recounted fight of some weeks 

 before, and I netted out at the same old tussock a beautiful 

 male fish which again scaled the exact two pounds. 



Incidentally there was another occupant of the next 

 place of vantage from which I had got that other fish, 

 and I approached him hopefully, with all the omens in 

 favour of a repetition of the luck of the previous occasion. 

 Unfortunately an unexpected flaw of wind dropped my 



