270 SALMON AND TROUT. 
perilous cast four or five brace of pretty fish with the loss of but 
a single fly. 
I am tempted here to give some instances from my own 
experience of success attained under difficulties by heeping out 
of sight in various ways. 
There was a reach of the upper Itchin where I had more 
than once found the trout, though sizeable and fairly numerous, 
yet provokingly wary and suspicious. The bank on one side 
was absolutely bare and very low; on the other—the southern 
side—it was steep and moderately high, by no means favourable 
to ‘keeping dark.’ But parallel to the course of the river, and at 
nearly the same level, there ran an irrigation cut, some two feet 
deep with rather a muddy bottom, about five yards distant 
from the main stream. Into this one day I lowered myself— 
having long legs and wading boots to correspond—and worked 
the stream with a double-handed rod by long casts. I could 
only just see the opposite edge of the water, but was consoled 
for losing my view of the fish by knowing that the deprivation 
was reciprocal. The dodge completely succeeded. Though I 
felt the rises instead of seeing them I rarely failed to hook my 
fish and very seldom lost him when hooked. The difficulty 
lay in serambling out of my ditch and rushing towards the 
river before my prisoner could bring me to grief by dashing 
under the near bank. In this way I did considerable execution 
on several occasions. I ought in frankness to admit that with 
more fishable water within easy reach many anglers would have 
thought the success hardly worth the pains it cost. This was 
certainly the opinion of a dear old friend and fellow-sports- 
man who witnessed my first sorvfée from the trench and landed 
my fish for me. He laughed till he cried at the figure I 
cut in scurrying towards the bank, .and could never after- 
wards be induced to exhibit himself in the like undignified 
position. 
I take my second instance from a lucky hit in loch fishing. 
Some thirty years ago I was afloat with two friends on Loch 
Treig, to the farther end of which we intended to fish our way. 
