330 SALMON AND TROUT. 
feel oppressed yourself, and hardly wonder that ‘the springing 
trout lies still’ Indeed it is a common apology for an empty 
creel that ‘there is thunder in the air.’ 
But in truth when the storm actually breaks over you it 
gives you a grand chance of sport. I shall never forget a short 
bout of fishing which I enjoyed one evening just above Wans- 
ford Bridge. I had been early on the stream, though well 
aware from the aspect of the sky that my cake was dough till 
the threatened elemental war was fairly let loose. I worked 
my way doggedly down the beck, casting from time to time, as 
on Sam Weller’s theory I might have eaten oysters, ‘out of 
sheer desperation.’ A few little fish I certainly took—they 
always w/Z come when you have to put them back—and one 
solitary pounder, who must have been either eccentric or life- 
weary to rise on such a day. 
But it was tedious work—the heat oppressive, the air dead. 
Even my attendant boy lost his faith in my star—took short 
cuts and long rests. I spun out my luncheon, smoked more 
than was good for me, and though I still held on for the 
heavier water below, I often doubted my weather forecast, and 
wished myself ‘taking mine ease in mine inn.’ But the still- 
ness was at last broken by distant mutterings of thunder ; the 
clouds banked up higher and higher, and just as I had reached 
the open water between Wansford mill and bridge the storm 
was upon me, with deafening peals and a slanting deluge of 
rain. Luckily I was waterproof, having one stiff cape over my 
shoulders and another buckled round above my hips and pro- 
tecting me as far as my knee-boots.! 
The wind was too furious to permit casting, but as it blew 
directly on my back I had simply to let out as much line as I 
wanted and let it fallas I could. Never did I see good fish 
rise so fast. The fly was seized as soon as it reached the water, 
and the only difficulty in killing the fish lay in the violence of 
the wind. In less than an hour and a half I basketed twenty- 
1 T recommend’this plan to all anglers ; it is cooler than one long overcoat, 
end throws off rain without confining the perspiration, 
