being in his favour and the fly lighting correctly, the fish has risen, and has been hooked. Chavender has a mental chart of the river bed and his surroundings on the bank, and this enables him with the least possible amount of trouble to bring the fish to the landing stage. (I speak as if it were a steamboat, but no matter.) The net is put into the water at the right moment, never too soon; the fish is grassed, considered, bludgeoned, or returned. All this quite without flurry. If the creature escapes, Chavender does not explain. He turns a little white and goes on to another, master, as far as is possible in angling, of himself and of his destiny.
It could never happen to Chavender to fall thrice into the same ditch while endeavouring to get a tight line on a trout. Chavender would know the ditch was there, and would run down stream between it and the river rather than backwards into the ditch, as I did yesterday week. Yes, Chavender makes fewer mistakes than any other angler I know, and that is why he is the best.
You may argue, if you please, that if this contention is pushed as far as it will go, the best angler is the man who never fishes, and so makes fewer mistakes even than Chavender. But I say tush to you. Can anyone be more mistaken
