238 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



ground for attacking the pool. Yet it was right under this 

 far bank that on the sixth day I saw my only riser besides 

 the one aforementioned. He was close in under the bank, 

 almost beneath a large and bushy elm — the kind that wears 

 a sort of hangmen's fringe — and under a horrid canopy of 

 frog-bit, deceased meadowsweet, nettle, and other herbage 

 devised for the confusion of anglers, the profit of tackle- 

 dealers, and the despair of over-worked recording angels. 



The only redeeming features of the situation were the 

 direction of the wind (which was not unfavourable), and 

 the fact that the trout lay just where the mill-head was at 

 its narrowest. I calculated that with luck I might cover 

 the fish once in thirty or forty casts, and I stuck to him 

 for the best part of an hour, during which he rose perhaps 

 twenty times. If I covered him during that time it was not 

 with a fly he wanted. I must have caught up in sedges and 

 other herbage behind fully as many times as he rose, and 

 my damaged wrist waxed tired. I waded in at the top of 

 the pool, and sought the high strip in the middle, to see 

 if I could get down to and opposite the fish, but half-way 

 down I began to ship water over the tops of my wading 

 stockings, and retreated to terra firma. But I was not 

 done yet. It was half a mile round by the mill to the 

 opposite side, and then the fish was quite inaccessible, 

 but still I went. It was just on noon when I arrived at 

 the spot and began to prospect. The fish was still there 

 and still rising — if anything, a trifle more freely than 

 before. What he was taking I could not see, but, going 

 down to the water behind the next tree below him, I 

 saw some black gnat, two little pale watery duns, a blue- 

 winged olive, and a spent red spinner go down, and a 

 sedge go scuttering along the water. The tree was about 

 twenty feet from the elm below which my trout lay, and 

 against it, waist high, swayed a very friendly and pre- 



