IMPOSSIBLE PLACES 105 



over a barbed wire crossing the stream eight or 

 ten yards away. 



There are countless such instances — I tell of 

 some more under the head of " Impossible Places " 

 — but there is one thing that may safely be deposed 

 to, and that is, that there is no place so desperate 

 that, with luck and management, you may not get 

 a well-hooked trout out of it. 



OF IMPOSSIBLE PLACES. 



The habit of a lightly hooked trout, of floundering 

 on the surface, is too well known to need enlarging 

 on. Sometimes his antics will be varied by leaps 

 into the air. But is the tendency of a hard-held 

 fish to go to weed or snag equally well realized ? 

 Yet from a consideration of these two established 

 tendencies may not a highly unorthodox method 

 of extricating a good fish from the impossible 

 position be evolved ? What is the theory ? 

 This : Let him think he is lightly hooked. 



It was on the banks of the Itchen that the 

 first glimmerings of the idea suggested themselves. 

 A novice with the dry fly was walking disconso- 

 late up the stream, bemoaning himself that he 

 could not find a rising fish. Coming up with a 

 brother angler just about to settle down to a 

 rising trout in some quick water, he was invited 

 to cast over it. The fly covered the right spot, 

 and brought up his troutship, who fastened, and, 

 turning at once, bolted at express speed down- 



14 



