BRETON TROUT STREAMS 41 



The fly-fisherman may safely elimmate the 

 lower waters of the Aout and Oust. The 

 former is said to hold good trout about 

 St. Caradec and Uzel. 



Near Rochefort-en-Terre is the Arz 

 River, which has seen dark deeds by night. 

 Many poachers live upon its banks. Its 

 wonderful old mills are less few and far 

 between than its surface-feeding trout. 

 I have often fished this beautiful river, 

 but only once have I taken a big trout, 

 and that my wife most skilfully landed in 

 an umbrella. 



Also there was that story, brought me 

 by the peasants, of a giant trout who 

 evaded poachers. He lived, this trout, 

 far under the shade of a thick bramble 

 patch ; one never saw him, only his oily 

 bubble. A whole afternoon I fished for 

 him with no success, yet could not put 

 him down. Fat bubbles for ever floated 

 out beneath the brambles in company 

 with my unmolested fly. It was, I re- 

 member, the day of the pardon of 

 St. Grave, and the white-coiffed peasants 

 trooped back across the plank bridge and 

 sat in the long grass under the hawthorn- 



