ANGLING NOTES.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16653, 14 October 1919, Page 5

ANGLING NOTES.

| "FIRST" EXPERIENCES. I * (SPECIALLT WRITTEN FOR "Tins rRKSS."> | (Br "Iron Bute.") n "The first" of the present fishing season has proved an exception to the rule of recent years, when, at the beginning of October it was usual to discover mrst of the waters at a low or lower ebb; "while this time nearly every river was in fresh or flood, and there was merely a choice of the one least muddy. In our own case choice fell upon a brook not more than a rod length from bank to bank, winding in pool and ripple through cultivated land.s; Lut even here the water was far too thick, though at intervals one hopefully assured another that it was clearing. A dozen brightlycoloured flies were tried quite vainly, and then —"out of curiosity," as he said —somebody looked beneath a stone, and there lny a horrid, wrigglmg -worm ; and later /\vo found more of them, and' put then on large hooks to fulfil their wormy destiiny. At the end of an hour I had caught five bits of branches and one whole boot, antl conducted a revolting search for my hook among tho works of a halfpounder which had swallowed a worm exceedingly; but at last a dozen trout were landed by oar three rods, and in due time they mado a fair to medium . breakfast.

It is right saddening to think of a lapse like that —I mean tho horrid worm part, not the breakfast —but sometimes these things occur, in untoward circumstances upon "the first," when, of course, one is especially keen to catch a trout and start the season. If you go home with an empty basket, Belinda May will very certainly put this down to your lack of angling skiill, and quite proba'bly say so; perhaps humbling you in the eyes and mouths of a fish-expccting family. No. "a first" without a trout is quite unthinkable.

This time it was a flood that led us to such misdoing, but otherwise it seems that a drought may be to blame, almost equally; as on on another opening day, when we wandrrrd for milos by tho side of a dead-low flv-stream, to the bank of a pool, generally far too deep for any useful mirpose, but now a level slix-fdot run of glassy wnter. Trout were thero in hundreds—George soya I should have written "thousands" if I had been a nice true angler, bnt let this pass—doubtless they had collected from the drying stream into the deep; and as surely they would not havo a

fly of any kind or sort. Neither, apparently, ccutd we obtain a bait: for excepting water and shingle. a rotting log seemed the only outstanding feature or the scenery, a relic of a pine tree uprooted by some forgotten storm. _ Well, if we could not fish, we would sit on that log and eat our sandwiches, and Randal would wish there were more; !>ut before seating himself an illhumoured fisherman kicked savagely at the log, "bust.'ng it ( right wide open," so to say; and out rolled a fat white hoti-hou grub. The log was full of them, and experiment soon showed that if wo lowered one on a hook into the moving mars of trout, some one of these would care for it at the shortest notice.

I know that I have not been writlrg primly and nroperly on high dry-fly vrindiplos. but on "firsts"- like that just r»T*t. and the one before, you may possibly sicken .of such and descend to the depths with your worms and hou-hou grubs. It is only a temonrary fitting of ways and means. Next week, the waters may he shallower, and w? - ; se h'jrh again to that same dry fly. By the way, that •proverb about "fiVh'n? in shallow waters'' is out of dnto; and tho man who ft could p.ot hrve |>(»an ro!l t fly at al! Nt all. "H-p-f-n as nn curler" is a truer snyiusr: and having seen our trout, we are boTvntr t-i catch them; if not immediately or sooner, why, then, next weetE.