EPISODICAL 243 



few — a very few — blue-winged olives, and the trout were 

 obviously not taking them, and were equally obviously 

 sipping spinners. In the bend up to which by the time 

 the rise began I had sauntered there were three fish rising, 

 perhaps once a minute. The first was a very ruse and ex- 

 perienced fish, in a strategic position of great advantage for 

 observation (his observation), and he went down at the 

 second offer of the Indispensable. The second stood better, 

 and rose several times within an inch or two of the fly without 

 touching it ; but while I was changing to the pattern of the 

 afternoon's manufacture he took fright at something, 

 and bolted before I began to get out line again. Thus it 

 came about that the next fish I covered was No. 3. He 

 was moving a bit from side to side on the margin of a 

 slow eddy, but presently the fly almost dropped on his nose, 

 and he had it as it lit. At the tightening of my line he was 

 off with a swift violence rectangularly across-stream, 

 tearing through bunches and masses of weed, the line taut 

 as a bowstring, then up and back and across to my own 

 bank again, hooping the little rod and keeping me moving to 

 prevent a smash. For a long time nothing I could do would 

 turn him down, but at last I took a lucky chance and got 

 his head down-stream, and from that point I kept beating 

 him down, turning and checking every attempt to get up 

 again to his corner until I had got him down a hundred 

 and fifty yards or so below the point where I hooked him. 

 Then he made a violent effort to turn upstream, and, that 

 defeated, rushed across to the far side. All this time I had 

 never seen a glimpse of him, and I was fated never to do so, 

 for at the effort to start him down again he gave a plunge 

 of startling violence, and the hook came away. Judging 

 only by the force of his play, he was easily the biggest fish 

 I ever hooked on that water, and I had had trout there 

 up to and a little over three pounds. 



