FLY FISHING FOR TROUT AND GRAYLING. 275 
pasture land, you must tread softly and cautiously. A heavy or 
hasty footfall will be felt by the fish under the near bank, who will 
rush out and spread alarm among their friends in mid-stream. 
I remember finding myself in a ridiculous fix in some pasture 
land of the ‘crumbling’ character along the Leintwardine club 
water. The favourite dog of a friend, who was busy with his 
hammer among the neighbouring strata of old red sandstone, 
deserted his master’s company for mine, having found, as I verily 
believe, trout more amusing than trilobites. Unluckily there were 
sundry cattle about—hideous white-faced Herefords—who kept 
charging after poor Crab, and driving him to my feet for refuge. 
They always stopped within a few yards of me, but their tramp- 
ling had a visible effect on the trout whom I wished to circum- 
vent. ‘There was a general hurry-skurry over the shallows. I 
might as well have been casting from the deck of that déte noire 
of Thames anglers, a steam launch. I felt, like the legendary 
Cambridge Don when Frau Professorinn presented him with 
twins, that ‘I must put a stop to this.’ So I hardened my 
heart, filled my pocket with pebbles, and pelted poor Crab till 
he found he must shift his quarters, and scuttled away to his 
master with a train of bullocks stampeding in his rear. This 
of course was an extreme instance of bank shaking, but many 
a time and oft have I known a heavy and heedless footfall mar 
the success of a promising cast from similar ground. And I 
could point out several reaches of well-stocked water which 
most of the local anglers have come to regard as scarcely worth 
fishing simply from their not allowing for the ‘ quaking’ cha- 
racter of the ground. Experience alone will teach the necessary 
caution, but where the buck-bean shows its silver stars, or ‘ the 
wild marsh marigold shines like fire,’ the fly fisher may at once 
accept a notice to move gently and lightly. 
To return to the question of ‘up’ or ‘down.’ Ina very rapid 
river, again, more, I think, is lost than gained by the up-stream 
cast. ‘The line is brought down so rapidly to the caster that it 
is hardly possible for him to keep it taut enough for the fish to 
hook itself, and ‘striking’ is practically out of the question. 
T2 
