282 THE TROUT ARE RISING 
turning the scales at exactly two pounds. Diffi- 
dence is an attractive quality, but if a man would 
learn to be an angler, it seems better for him to 
risk losing his first fish or so, and thus to acquire 
experience, than to hand over the rod tamely to 
some one else. 
An adventure of old days on the Severn im- 
pressed me much at the time, and was carefull 
stored in my memory, so that I should profit by 
it should the occasion recur, On a summer 
evening, when wading on a ford between Cressage 
and Buildwas, I got attached to a trout apparently 
between two and three pounds in weight. After 
a fine fight, lasting several minutes, he escaped, 
When I reeled up the line I found that a small 
fish was on the hook. It proved to be a samlet 
showing signs of having been in trouble, The 
explanation of course was that the samlet had first 
taken the fly and that the trout had immediately 
taken the samlet. Had only the true state of 
affairs been grasped sooner, the obvious procedure 
for that special emergency would have been to 
allow the trout more time instead of never giving 
him a moment’s rest. 
The incident in a measure repeated itself 
about nine years later, when I was fly-fishing on 
the Umgeni in Natal. The Severn incident 
leaped swiftly to my mind when two small scalies, 
having respectively taken each of the two flies on 
the cast, a big fish was seen darting at one or 
other of them. A pause, identically as resolved, 
was made, so as to give the cannibal time. But 
