204 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



Above the bend was a tussocky bank with the stream deep 

 and rather slow beneath. So I restored the Sedge to the 

 cast — for it is a likely length for the Sedge — and felt 

 my way up foot by foot, getting and turning back a small 

 trout which had no business in that place of " big yins," 

 and retaining a fourteen-inch fish. 



A little higher, where the stream ran more strongly 

 under my bank, I put up my seal's-fur spinner, and 

 dropping it almost to the inch upon the nose of a cruiser, 

 I surprised him into taking it. I guessed him one pound 

 nine ounces. He went one pound ten ounces later. 



I was now not far from the hut. So I deposited my 

 spoil and commandeered some of " Fleur-de-Lys' " whisky- 

 and-soda, and waited for the evening rise to begin. 



It was slow in coming. There was a little jenny spinner 

 on the water, and, in default of a Jenny spinner, I put up a 

 Tup. I had an astonishing number of rises, but the fly 

 was not right, and it was not taken soundly, for of a dozen 

 or more offers I only connected with one, and he kicked 

 off after a minute's play. The seal's-fur spinner was not 

 taken at all, and I was thankful at dusk to see the blue- 

 winged olive beginning to show and be taken, for I had 

 the almost infallible recipe in that water, the large Orange 

 Quill, and in the quarter of an hour or twenty minutes 

 of the rise I got a nice brace of hard-fighting, well-con- 

 ditioned trout — one of one pound ten ounces, and one of 

 one pound five ounces. And so to mine inn. 



As a matter of precaution I unscrewed the net from the 

 handle and carried the fish in the net, as I was not minded 

 to break the net-ring in the neck of the screw. For the 

 four brace of trout totted up to just over ten pounds. I 

 have often had worse sport on that water when much 

 better equipped, and I always look back with pleasure to 

 that makeshift half-day. 



