GRAYLING. 183 



head keeper of the estate as the most likely 

 for the purpose. At the first glance it was 

 obvious that the growth of weeds was too 

 luxuriant to hope for a successful day. How- 

 ever, being on the spot, it was decided to make 

 the attempt, and the plan suggested in the 

 chapter on netting was adopted, viz., a purse 

 net as a stop, and a heavy drag net followed at 

 a distance of about ten yards by a double- 

 walled, trammel. The first two or three pulls 

 were not encouraging, only producing some 

 eight or ten little grayling of about -J-lb. each. 



A deepish hole with a morass of heavy weeds 

 immediately above it, and a sharp shallow, also 

 much overgrown, below it, was pointed out as 

 a good lay for the fish. The stop net could not 

 be fixed on the lower side of the hole, as the 

 water, forced into a contracted channel by the 

 growth of weeds, was too rapid to admit of the 

 foot or ground line being kept down by any 

 ordinary weight of leads. The space altogether 

 was too circumscribed to admit of the second 

 net being dragged, so that it was necessary to 

 work with the heavy drag net alone. Presuming 

 that the grayling were in the hole, the danger 

 was that, if the fish ran down in front of the 

 net, they would dart over the shallow into the 

 weeds below, and be lost for the day. After 

 the net had been stretched across just above 



