A little waxed thread and varnish soon put them into workable trim, and before going to bed we pledged a parting glass that some of our friends should gain a new experience on the morrow. And so it fell out. We knew that playing fish in such overgrown haunts was out of the question, and that if we had the luck to hook them it would be a question of pull devil, pull baker. Towards evening we met at our trysting-place. Green grasshoppers were numerous, so there was no lack of bait. As I anticipated, "Randolph Churchill's" inquisitiveness and audacity caused him to become our first victim. The bushes were far too thick to let us drop our bait near him in the ordinary manner. Our only chance was to roll the line round our rods, poke it through the bushes, unroll it carefully, dangle it before his nose, and then, if we had the luck to hook him, to give him no law, but to trust to our tackle and to hold on like grim death.
The next victim that evening was "Bradlaugh," a bold riser, who fought well, and who thoroughly justified his cognomen when on the bank. "Disraeli" was for some time our master; he knew a trick or two, and was by no means easily beguiled, though often pricked and once lightly hooked. Even his caution was at length overcome, and hardly an evening passed but that one or more of these, relatively speaking, monsters of some 2½ to 5 lb. in weight was landed.
"Lord Salisbury," however, proved to be a very difficult nut to crack, and beyond our powers of persuasion. He would solemnly inspect our lure, sniff round it, as it were, and then sink slowly down to his accustomed place. He seemed to know all about it, so, intent on other sport with the gun, we at last let him severely alone, telling the river keeper to get him out if he could.
One evening, as we were at dinner, there came a pressing message from the keeper to be allowed to see us; so, on ordering him in, a smiling rubicund visage appeared at the door, that of our friend the keeper, bearing in his hands a dish, on which reposed the vast proportions of "Lord Sallusberry," as he termed him, a tardy victim to the wiles of patience, combined with the reiterated attractions of a green grasshopper.
Possibly this kind of dapping may be deemed to be a poor kind of sport, and, speaking from a strictly orthodox point of view, the accusation cannot be denied. But, after all, it has its merits. It enables you, in waters where there are no May flies, to seduce the heavy fish into unwonted activity, and into taking surface flies. Thus you remove what are little short of pests in a trout stream, and you gain an interest in overcoming the difficulties of an otherwise impossible situation.
CHAPTER XII.
GRAYLING FISHING.
GRAYLING have one advantage over trout in that they extend your fishing season by at least three months. Whereas trout may be called spring and summer fish, grayling are autumn and winter fish. While trout love positions under overhanging banks, or in the side runs by the bank side, grayling, on the other hand, generally occupy positions in mid-stream, lying near, or on, the bottom. In rivers that contain both fish, a bank rise may be generally put down to a trout. I would have substituted the word "confidently" for "generally," had not a very competent critic placed a marginal note to my MS., stating that "he would it were so."