THE APRIL DAY. 7 



mode of angling, and his enthusiasm for it is unquenchable. And 

 so, when fickle April comes, he seeks the game half-pounders in the 

 rough and tumbled waters of a boulder-scattered stream. 



Very often, the lover of the April day is the object of much 

 ridicule on the part of the dry-fly man, the " butterfly " fisherman, 

 and the non-angler. They declare that he goes to the riverside with 

 the sole purpose of catching fish ; that he fails to accomplish his 

 purpose and suffers great physical discomforture. Furthermore, his 

 scoffers say that, after he has been beaten and buffeted by the 

 raging wind, drenched to the skin by the rain, and chilled to the 

 bone by the intense cold, he returns home with an empty creel and 

 a miserable and dejected countenance, and proclaims what a 

 " glorious " day he has had ! He replies that it is this battling with 

 the elements that constitutes the charm of the April day. The 

 capture of trout in unpropitious weather gives not less pleasure, 

 but probably more, than does the capture of the same under more 

 genial conditions. He does not deliberately wait for an unfavour- 

 able day on which to visit the stream : but he will not be deterred 

 from carrying out his arrangements by bad weather, so long as it is 

 not absolutely impossible. He prefers the balmier April day ; but 

 he enjoys the blustering one. He abides the rough with the smooth, 

 and maintains that, as it takes all kinds of people to make a world, 

 so does it need all sorts of weather to complete the education of the 

 angler. Who will dispute the fact that but few hours of the season 

 are spent entirely in vain on the river bank, even though the 

 weather be dreary and the day unremunerative in the matter of 

 sport ? 



Nature and the trout-stream have always something new to 

 tell the angler ; they have always something to show that gives him 

 cause to deplore his ignorance. Nevertheless, he acknowledges 

 that there are times in early spring when it would be absurd and 

 useless to put together his rod. And he also avows without 

 shame that there are days on which the inclement conditions do 

 not exactly give him pleasure during the time he is actually exposed 

 to them. But when he has discarded his waders, embedded his 



