TROUTING IN THE TELEMARK. 
165 
elected to bolt upwards, beneath the bridge, nothing 
could have saved a smash. Instead, he essayed to fight 
it out from his lair among the stones, which no doubt 
afforded some illusory shelter ; then he fell back, down¬ 
stream (the current being strong), till it became neces¬ 
sary to check him. Presently he was back beneath the 
bridge, rolling, and in visible distress. There remained 
the task of piloting him round the projecting buttress, 
and across the strong stream under the shore, towards 
my landing-net among the shelving rocks below, and 
soon a brown trout of lbs. was safely basketed. 
Many good fish we afterwards killed off that old 
bridge, and the landing-net was kept frequently em¬ 
ployed on the lichen-clad ledge below. Yet the full 
resources of the river remained to be discovered. At 
another point, on the farther shore, where the stream 
ran swift and unruffled—too placid, one feared, for fly— 
were a series of deep embayed pools literally alive with 
fine trout. By mere chance I discovered them; for, 
carelessly walking round the point of one of these bays, 
from my very feet darted away a whole shoal of startled 
trout. Then I observed that these rock-spurs were 
more than mere projecting promontories; each was 
part of a continuous rock-stratum dipping far across 
the river. Above each shelf the sloping rock dipped 
gently away into deeper water again, and there was 
merely a slight swirl to show the spot where the current 
poured over the submerged ledge into the deep cauldron 
below. It was here, just behind this rock-face, that the 
best of the speckled beauties lay poised, awaiting the 
flies which the stream carried to their mouths. 
There was a series of these bays, all precisely alike, 
