WHEN LADIES FISH 179 
husbands and wives in sympathy on fishing 
holidays. In Devonshire in the spring of 1919 
one married couple used to go off together every 
day. On reaching the water they would go their 
several ways, meeting to compare notes at.lunch- 
time or in the evening. This had long been 
their invariable custom. The lady, of course, 
depended on herself for landing fish and every- 
thing. Devonshire streams are well suited to 
ladies who fish by themselves. The trout there 
run small and do not take so much landing or 
unhooking as the pounders or two-pounders of 
chalk-stream districts, though it would be hard to 
find fault with their sporting qualities. 
The husband of a wife who fishes ought, I 
think, to be a pretty good hand at it himself. 
I knew of one sad case in which a man was 
always urging his wife to fish. At last she took 
his advice, and applied herself to the art seriously. 
She happened to be a very clever woman and in 
course of time she not only equalled her adviser 
in skill but surpassed him in basket. The last 
state of that man was that he gave up fishing and 
was to be seen meekly accompanying his wife as 
she fished. She allowed him to carry her landing 
net ! 
In Scotland I met a honeymoon couple who 
had angling gear with them. He was an ex- 
perienced fisherman, she a novice. They were a 
happy couple, but fishing was too much for them, 
and once they had begun they got so interested 
and absorbed that they were very soon out of sight 
