EPISODICAL 223 



to bring him down. Gradually he yielded and came back 

 into the arch. Then I began to get my net out and down 

 to the water's edge, and at the critical moment when I 

 turned him down I stripped my line by hand through the 

 rings, and rushed my fish tumbling demoralized into the 

 net just above the middle stake of the fence. He was 

 two pounds one ounce, and in fine order. At the moment 

 I thought him well earned. Looking back I see how 

 easily the result might have been reversed but for un- 

 imaginable luck. 



The other instance happened in this wise. The weeds 

 in the carrier had been cut in late July of 1914, and had 

 not had much time to grow again. The sedges, however, 

 overhung the carrier from one side, and I thought it possible 

 on a still and hot August afternoon I might find a trout 

 in their shade by means of my favourite Landrail and 

 Hare's-ear Sedge. So again I waded down a drain, crossed 

 a table at the bottom near a cross-dyke, and getting along- 

 side the carrier began to search the edge under the sedges 

 by a cast every yard or two. I hooked and lost one nice 

 fish, and had come almost to the abomination aforesaid, 

 when some instinct bade me not to show my head. 

 Crouching down I drew several yards off my reel in excess 

 of the length I meant to cast, and dropped my fly a yard 

 or more over and across the fence. Striking at the sound 

 I found myself fast, and, the fish darting down-stream under 

 the fence, fortunately my side of the centre stake. Loosing 

 my casting line, I flung all I could up over the fence towards 

 the culvert and let off more as I ran up to the fence. By 

 the time I reached it my reel was all but empty, but I had 

 time to turn my rod-point under the fence and to pass the 

 whole rod under. Then with all my line out I had to 

 follow and hold a strong fish fighting down an almost 

 weedless carrier, and stop him before he got to the cross- 



