274 A Sportsman at Large 



" Any luck, Cockle ? " he shouted as he drew near. 



" Not much/' I said. " By the way, you caught a decent 

 fish before breakfast, didn't you ? " 



" I should smile why I got a beauty of twenty-six pounds ! 

 That's good enough surely? " 



" Not half," I said casually; " you don't call that a fish? 

 Come and look at mine." 



Whereupon I led him to my magnificent victim. He was 

 struck dumb with amazement. 



" By Jove ! " he exclaimed, " that's a beauty, and no 

 mistake ; but where's mine ? I left it here ! " 



"I'm very sorry, old chap," I replied, " but I thought 

 you wouldn't mind if I used it as bait for this one." 



His reply was terse and somewhat rude. 



" Oh, you be damned ! " he exclaimed, turning away. 



Two days later, I was fishing the Foss Pool, which at that 

 time was rather high. There was but a small space on the 

 further side, and even this could be fished only with difficulty, 

 as there was a high rock behind the angler, with a dense 

 growth of large bushes at its base. The fly had to be 

 " flicked " in ; but as the fish generally congregated there 

 to escape the terrific rush of the main stream, it was not 

 necessary to get the lure far out. The " Wilkinson " was 

 again my chosen fly. The very first time that I succeeded 

 in manoeuvring it into a favourable position, it was seized 

 by " a whopper." It was then a matter of " Pull, devil ; 

 pull, baker," and resolved itself into a question of which was 

 the stronger the fish or myself and my tackle. Unless I 

 could contrive to keep him in the backwater, I knew it 

 would be all up with me ; for once in the main stream no rod 

 or line that was ever made would hold him ; so I put on every 

 ounce of strain that my rod would stand. To cut a long 

 story short, I had the fish in such a position that, in the 

 absurdly brief space of six minutes, Tolle, lying prone on 

 the slab of rock at my feet and using a very long-handled 

 gaff, was able to strike effectively and haul up from the depths 

 a glorious cock-fish, the exact counterpart of the one I had 

 caught a few days previously in the Adsen Pool. The same 

 colouring, the same lines of symmetry and the same weight 



