The only possible method of
angling was to let the line, baited with a juicy "garden hackle,"
drift down the current as far as possible before you, under the
alder-branches and the cat-briers, into the holes and corners of the
stream. Then, if there came a gentle tug on the rod, you must
strike, to one side or the other, as the branches might allow, and
trust wholly to luck for a chance to play the fish. Many a trout we
lost that day,--the largest ones, of course,--and many a hook was
embedded in a sunken log, or hopelessly entwined among the boughs
overhead. But when we came out at the bridge, very wet and
disheveled, we had seven pretty fish, the heaviest about half a
pound. The Fairy Dell yielded a brace of smaller ones, and
altogether we were reasonably happy as we took up the oars and
pushed out upon the open stream.
But if there were fish above, why should there not be fish below?
It was about sunset, the angler's golden hour. We were already
committed to the crime of being late for supper. It would add
little to our guilt and much to our pleasure to drift slowly down
the middle of the brook and cast the artful fly in the deeper
corners on either shore. So I took off the vulgar bait-hook and put
on a delicate leader with a Queen of the Water for a tail-fly and a
Yellow Sally for a dropper,--innocent little confections of feathers
and tinsel, dressed on the tiniest hooks, and calculated to tempt
the appetite or the curiosity of the most capricious trout.
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