A TRIBUTARY OF THE SEVERN 87 
and numerous. Once he got into them, it would 
be fatal for any chance of securing him. There- 
fore I applied pressure, and determined on a 
desperate plan: I got the landing-net ready, so 
that by giving him short shrift I might tire him, 
or if he should providentially lie on the top of the 
weeds I might by chance very quickly get the net 
under him. But it turned out otherwise. True, 
he was kept clear of the weeds, but, after a minute’s 
palpitating excitement, he leaped a yard or so out 
of the water: the hook came away! After so 
many years’ fishing, one has learned to keep fairly 
cool when playing a fish, but this affair was just a 
little too much. My heart seemed to have left 
its usual latitude and longitude and to be 
carrying on somewhere near a rib on the right 
side. Well, well: the trout was off, but I would 
have liked to know its exact weight. On the same 
river, I once caught, as described elsewhere, a trout 
weighing three and three-quarter pounds; the 
weight, length, and girth were all ascertained. 
But this lost trout is all conjecture. What weight 
was he? I am sure he must have been in the 
neighbourhood of four pounds. Even if he had 
topped four pounds he would by no means have 
been a record for the Tern ; for instance, Mr. F. 
C. Woodforde, formerly head of the Market 
Drayton Grammar School, got one weighing over 
five pounds on the Stoke Grange length. 
