surface. How they tug and bore! What lengths of the bank we cover and cover as we follow those mighty fishes down the water to net them at last where the deep thins to the broad, gravelly shallow! Or is our fancy for some particular fish, that yellow monster that we got on the half-volley at our very feet as he came sulkily down to us, scared by the fish that we had pricked, the mighty trout that was looking into our eye as we flung the badger hackle at him, the golden giant that we hoped only to hasten, the colossus that we could hardly get into the net—the greatest trout? Do we care to live again through the marvellous moment of his rising? It is just as we please. Or there is the big fellow in the shallow, jungly backwater, that ran straight into a little patch of weed (a willow just above, an ash just below), and the rod being stoutly held up, splashed his way to the top, and so lay on his side, his head out of water, and taught us a new wrinkle for managing a weeded fish by holding him thus until he expires of asphyxiation. What though the wrinkle has never been used again? What though the odds against the possibility of its employment are 20,000 to 1? Let us warm ourselves in the glow of our own self-esteem, that we were able to realise the masterliness of inactivity, and so, ultimately, wade in and
