FLY-FISHING FOR BASS, ETC. 12/ 



My narrative really consists of two separate 

 stories, each being perfectly distinct and complete 

 in itself. The incidents occurred many years and 

 thousands of miles apart. But coincidence con- 

 nects them with each other in the fact that they 

 both occurred on the same date, May ist, and that 

 their salient features were alike, as were also their 

 results. " So much," to quote old Izaak Walton, 

 " for the prologue of what I mean to say." 



I was born on the banks of the English 

 Thames ; how long ago it does not boot to say. 

 My father, and generations of his ancestors, were 

 professional Thames fishermen, so it is easy to 

 understand that I loved and learned fishing as 

 soon as I could walk — nay, I am given to under- 

 stand that I caught my first fish before I could 

 walk. Be that as it may, I could handle a rod 

 long before most boys hear of one, and I was a 

 constant companion of my father whenever pos- 

 sible. He was a great fisherman, — I say it advis- 

 edly, — keen of eye, intuitive, an athlete, and a fish 

 lover, and particularly was he a great trout-fisher- 

 man. The Thames trout is a brown trout {Salmo 

 faiid), and grows to sixteen pounds on exceptional 

 occasions, and averages, or did, from seven to ten 



