FISHING FOR SEA-TROUT 215 



way in which she hurried that fish to the net was 

 almost laughable. At last she had him, and he 

 weighed a pound and three-quarters. But John 

 never mentioned the tiny creel. He winked at 

 me, and I guessed he was waiting for a larger fish. 

 Pretty soon she got another one which, though a 

 splendid fighter, was half a pound smaller than the 

 first. With the exception of a few small fish we 

 had no more luck that day, but we had thoroughly 

 enjoyed ourselves, and the wife acknowledged that, 

 after all, there were large trout in the world, 

 though she had previously doubted it. 



The river was an ideal one in most ways — fairly 

 swift, clear, and icy cold, with deep pools here 

 and there in which lay the big fish. On the second 

 day of our stay here I had no luck at all, but the 

 wife caught a fine three-pounder. Unfortunately 

 I was not with her when she landed it, but there 

 were great stories of her excitement. By bad luck 

 she had left the tiny creel at the house. 



On the third day we went down stream in the 

 boat, fishing as we went along. We were going 

 very slowly, the wife sitting in the bow casting 

 carefully over every likely place. Suddenly there 

 was a splendid rise at the fly ; she struck too 

 quickly, and missed. Almost instantly she had 

 that fly back on the spot, but nothing came. Again 

 and again the large fly was dropped on the quiet 

 water behind a submerged stone, and with a discon-^ 

 solate sigh she was just saying what a shame it was 

 to have lost such a monster (all fish that rise to her 

 fly and miss it are " monsters"), when there was 

 a mighty splash and a beautiful fish leaped clear 



