An idler on the landing-stage pushed the rowlock with his foot; the boat welted away a yard or two; the right oar fended us from a maze of moored skiffs; then, as arms and body swayed into rhythmic pendulations, we drew toward open water.

‘Now, Jem,’ said my companion to the walnut-bearded boatman, ‘what’s the likeliest bit for trolling?’

‘Millerground Bay for a start, then down the Belle Grange side awhile, and finish about t’ Ferry.‘

My intention in coming off this particular afternoon was to watch my companions’ work. The angler was a big man, robust in muscle and rosy in face. The lake possessed few secrets from him; with Jem at the oars, he had fished every shoal and round every islet and bay. Char and trout, pike and perch, on occasion provided him sport, and the worst of days was never wholly unfruitful. As an angler he might have faults: non-success was not now among them. Jem the boatman was a character in his way, and, chiefest interest to me, he was esteemed a first-class handler of a fishing-boat.

As the boat rattled through the wavelets I looked round. Maytime in Lakeland! Great boles and branches of thousands of forest trees almost hidden in a smother of green foliage, with here and there huge sprays of milk-white blossom where wild-cherry and crab-apple, whitethorn and blackthorn, grew. The fields between the woodlands were tenderly and vividly green, while shadows of verdure climbed up the swelling mountain-slopes away on the horizon. This scene to the right: on our left and in front the waters of the lake sparkled, dotted with two or three islets green-crowned over a profusion of wild-flowers, and further away stood the dark fir-woods of Claife. We were now rapidly leaving the crowded bay, heading for where one or two boats slowly drifted.

‘Those chaps are fishing with the fly,’ said the angler. ‘After all the rain yesterday, they’ll do fairly well if they’ve plenty of time. But it’s slow work with the fly with a bright sun like this; and yonder, in the shelter of the trees, there’s hardly a ruffle on t’ water.‘

The afternoon was drawing to a glorious close; the sun had receded far. Quoth Jem, ‘We’d better be starting,’ as the boat approached within fifty yards of a little headland. At this the angler turned out a couple of rods, one for either side our craft. In a minute the lines were fixed. After allowing about forty feet he placed a switch, to which by lengths of gut were attached two spinners baited with perchlets. The angler drew my attention to the fact that trout find these little creatures more inviting when the strong pine-fin has been cut away. ‘A perch in fighting trim is avoided by all sensible trout.’ By this time Jem had the boat’s head round, and we were facing a fair breeze from the south-west. The sun had plunged behind a heavy mass of cloud, and a shadow darkled across the water.

‘Good!’ chuckled the angler. ‘Now, Jem, with a bit of luck we should do well.’

A dull, warm day with a fair ripple, I was given to understand, is ideal for the troller.

Immediately his lines had floated overboard the angler riveted his attention to the nodding rod-points. The oarsman continued to pull. He never made a splash sufficient to startle the shoals of fish in the depths beneath us. His strokes were just more than sufficient to counteract the drag of the ripples. Slowly, therefore, the boat crept on, its course nearly parallel with the shore. My attention wandered as I looked over Calgarth’s cylindrical chimneys to the groves of Troutbeck and the eternal fells. Jem, with eyes apparently shut, was plying his blades with stealthy touch and slight depths. The angler was intent on the lines trailing astern.

Then the angler moved at his vigil post astern. His practised hand was at the fastenings of the rod. The line jerked a little; then a portion of its length stretched taut and clear of the water—a bite at last. W—— was on his feet in a second, the rod freed in his hand. Jem ceased to row, and as the boat slowly drifted the contest between man and fish began. As the line slackened, W—— wound in warily, for he had felt that this was a big trout. The rod-top bent suddenly; his hand clapped a strain on the line. The trout was fighting steadily, and the long line was at first in his favour. At last I saw the top of a ripple ten feet away break, and a dark curling body came into view. Three seconds later an exhausted trout was squirming in the landing-net I held for its reception. A fine dark-coloured fish it was, too—one and a half pounds by the scale.

After this the boat was floated close inshore for half an hour without success till Jem rebelled, pointing out that we were nearly back at Bowness Bay. The boat was accordingly turned to cross the lake. As we glided along, lines towing astern, W—— lit his pipe and began to talk.

‘It was just in mid-lake here three years ago that I caught a very big trout—over five pounds, and strong and lively in proportion. It was on an evening such as this. The char were hereabouts that year, too. You know, the char in this lake keep in shoals, and move about altogether. Just now they are in the upper basin. They are gradually coming back to us. But char-fishing with the plumb-line is slow sport at best. How is it done? Well, like this: Imagine a heavy sinker on a line from which hang by gut-lengths as many as fifty hooks and baits. That’s your tackle. You row out to where the char are lying, and drop your sinker overboard, taking care that your baits don’t foul one another in going down. Then you await results. If your sinker is too deep or not deep enough, you have your time for nothing. Hour after hour you sit trying different depths and places, perhaps to find a couple of small char caught at the end of a long and trying day.‘

At this moment a jerk at the nearer line brought up this yarn abruptly. There was a lively bit of play as the trout doubled and dodged, being backed and rushed in desperation, but finally was played to the boatside completely drowned. The other line was also taken at the same time, but this was only a nibble.

‘I like perch-fishing best,’ said Jem, as he leant on his oars. The last down-steamer was passing, churning the waters into foam and creating a strong water. ‘Do you remember, Mr. W——, that droppy June day under the trees at Millerground? We were out but four hours for over two hundred fish. But, then, bass aren’t worth much, so we were hardly into pocket.‘

This phenomenal catch, I need hardly mention, was due to my friends coming across a large school of perch suddenly taken with ‘biting mania.’ At such time anything is risen at, and the sport only concludes when the last member of the school is captured. I have watched in clear water a perch taken struggling wildly from between companions, each of which, undeterred, took the same bait within a minute.

‘Do you have much trouble with pike?’ I asked, anxious to get their opinions on each of the important denizens of the lake.

‘Well, no; pike are fairly kept down by using trimmers, and the Angling Association nets whenever it is possible. There’s not half so many pike as there used to be.’

‘There’s a story that when Professor Wilson was once rowing near the Ferry he picked up a couple of exhausted pike. They were of almost equal size, and one had tried to swallow the other head first, with the result that the head had fixed in its throat, choking it.’

‘Oh yes,’ responded Jem, ‘I have talked with one of the men who picked up the two fish. But it’s nothing fresh for two pike to try that game on. I have seen them myself chewing halfway up one another’s bodies. Pike cannot loose their jaws after they have once gripped a thing. I got a pike at Wray once with its teeth still fixed in the body of a two-pound trout.’

By this time we were progressing in the shade of the fir-woods. It was grand to hear the breeze whisper just above, and here and there came the rattle of a rivulet down the rocky bluffs. For an hour Jem rowed and paused alternately. A goodly haul of fish was present in the well of the boat at the finish.

With my face over the side of the boat, I looked down into deep, still water, and, though it was evening, the bottom, scarred with rocks and tiny cliffs, was in full view. In my idlings I conjured up from this flat boulder the image of a boat; from that muddied pile of fragments the semblance of a ruined cottage; here a patch of stoneless lake-bed stood for a field, with rugged heaps of rock for boundaries. But as daylight faded away the subaqueous panorama failed me. The sky above the fir-trees glowed with crimson and orange; the zenith was bright blue flecked with white cloud-wrack. Then, to the sound of cracking whips and hoarse voices, to the regular hoofings of horses and the discordant groanings and shriekings of braked wheels, the wood-waggon made its difficult, dangerous way down a dell to the narrow by-road. And further away up the slope the sound of the woodman’s axe died away as semi-darkness told him that the long day’s task was over.

We had now been afloat over four hours, so that a meal was due to us. Jem turned over his coat which had laid in the stern, and produced a large packet from his pocket. W—— had provided a basket of food, fortunately, so we fell to. I might have said that the meal was washed down by draughts of clear water from the lake, but the element upbearing our craft tasted—how shall I say it?—insipid, tasteless, or, perhaps more accurately, rather flat. After a short interval my companions produced tobacco and pipes, and a thick fragrance hung in the air. W—— took up his strain of tutor again.

‘In trolling, the chief things to bear in mind are soundless rowing, baits on a long line, face the wind if possible. A breeze, take it for granted, will never blow you exactly along the line you wish to follow. As to where to fish, round islets and near shoals are the best places, while about thirty yards from shore, where the lake-bed suddenly falls away to a great depth, is a very safe place for fish.’

The pipes were puffed pensively awhile after this; then Jem the lustful spoke out:

‘What a night this would be for lathing! In my father’s time this boat, instead of hauling four baits through the water, would have had a hundred or more. Laths, each with six hooks, would have been dotting the water thirty yards either side of us, and a boat-load of fish would have been landed.’

Without laths, however, our sport had been deadly enough, and at last, while the night was still young, the lines were finally hauled in, and through steely darkness we glided up the narrow sleeve of water between Curwen’s Isle and the mainland to Bowness and to bed.

II. Out with the Bracken-clock

During the hot, close days of June there is but one lure which invariably succeeds when angling in mountain waters, and that is the bracken-clock—a beetle somewhere about half an inch in length, possessing tiny wings and sheathed in tough scales, which then swarms along the hillsides.

We were assured of an ideal day for tarn-fishing when we left our quarters, and had agreed to stick to the uptrending path till the tarnside was reached. But our resolution went for nothing, as we turned to the moorland beck at the first opportunity. Though tempered somewhat by the breeze, the sun’s power was unpleasantly in evidence. No tree was there in the whole upland valley large enough to render us shade, and the companionship of the rattling brooklet seemed to render our walk cooler and more tolerable. The infant Lowther was as usual crowded with tiny fish; the few large ones seen here and there among the smaller fry had apparently run up from the adjacent lake. To these we would have liked to have paid attention, but in general the water ran so low and clear that success seemed impossible.

One thing about Mardalehead strikes me as peculiar: you look up the dale from the hotel or from the side of Branstree, and it seems as though the descending rivulets are like continuous threads dancing in the sunshine; but only when you begin to follow the brooks closely do you find what cunning little dubs and gullies are hidden away among the rolling hillocks. I knew that one of these concealed reaches held a deep pool in which were several large trout. Coming down from a climb of High Street, the steep front-face of which glowers into Mardalehead, two evenings ago I had lain by the rock-dub and watched the rising trout. They were then taking some small insects which the current was washing down.

This morning I approached cautiously. The sun was shining straight into the narrow gorge, lighting up the veil of spray from the spouting fosse with brilliant rainbow hues. The bracken fronds, almost dipping into the waters, were swarming with winged life, the glossy clocks being most abundant. The then sandy soil also teemed with red ants, while caterpillars of many sizes hung on the stems of the heather.

‘What shall I put on?’ queried my companion, as he picked up for closer examination a particularly fine clock.

‘That, of course,’ I replied; ‘and drive your hook well home, for they are tough customers, and will wriggle off if you don’t mind. The trout here won’t look at a bare hook.’

J—— got himself into a good position, and after a few attempts dropped his line where the fish were lying. The distance was short, but the rock-basin was small and fringed with branches of holly, alder, and rowan. It was apparent that the trout were going off the feed, for the sun was becoming more and more powerful, but two or three were not yet gorged. At J——’s fourth throw, directed towards the bubbles and ripples around the fall, a fine yellow trout floated up to and annexed the beetle. I was waiting my turn to cast—for two lines could not be plied at once in such narrow quarters—so saw the whole struggle. J——’s line jerked taut, bringing the surprised fish almost to the surface; then it doubled back towards the foot of the pool, going deeper as the slackened line allowed it, till when my friend at last checked it; his line was almost fouled among the heather twigs. There was a fine piece of play here—through the transparent water every evolution of the fish was clear to me—but in a few minutes the trout tired and came within the swoop of J——’s landing-net.

Fishing on unsuccessfully for some half-hour, we had decided that the next would be our last cast, when a lethargic trout to which I had already dangled clock and ant was aroused to indiscretion by the appearance of a fat green caterpillar on the top of the whirlpool, apparently just tumbled from the swaying rowans above. In a flash the floating morsel was sucked in, and the hidden barb struck home. So surprised was the trout at this interruption of his day-dream that I had him clear of the whirlpools and almost on to the narrow shingle at my feet before he began to struggle. It was a splendid example of the brown trout, but I was disappointed at its tame, tardy fight for freedom. We spent, encouraged by this success, another half-hour by this force, but no further reward being forthcoming, we decided to make a move towards the mountain tarn.

Over the lowering crags we could see huge masses of vapour gathering in north and west, and, as our local oracle promised, these clouds spread so widely that by noon the sun’s rays were shorn of most of their radiance. The air, however, became close almost as the puff from a mammoth oven, and this though the breeze was at this elevation powerful enough to make a tidy ripple on the tarn’s surface. Walking along the shore by the outlet, I now observed a common tragedy of to-day in Nature. There was a whirring of minute wings, and close to my ear there passed the usual bracken-clock. It was wafted by the wind some twenty yards over the water before its weak wings refused to uphold its carcase longer, and down with a faint thud the insect dropped.

The breeze blowing right across the tarn carried it struggling along for a short way; then there was a glimpse of a curved fin above the water, an extra dimple in the ripples, and the insect had been taken down by some voracious trout or perch. In a few seconds I had another clock on my line and swung it out to near where the previous one had disappeared. The hook had hardly reached the water before I felt the jerk of a ‘bite.’ There is no fine nibbling by the trout where the clock is concerned, and therefore almost anyone can strike successfully. The fish I had on was a lively customer, and more than once I feared an escape, but the hook was too deep to be wrenched out by error of judgment. When at last it came into the shallows and was netted, I had time to consider. My friend further up the tarnside was some time in achieving a capture: he was casting too short by far. In a mountain tarn such as this it is necessary that the fly or bait be cast as far out as possible. The water goes very gradually deeper for some twenty yards from the shore, then falls away to great depths almost precipitously.

Just beyond the point where the deep and shallow so nearly meet the chief shoals of fish usually lie. In flood-time, and of nights in summer, they approach the beck mouths for food, and may be here taken; but during the day the most successful angler is the one who can throw most accurately to a great distance. To-day there was little difficulty in seeing where the fish lay; constantly they dashed at the floating carcases, frequently a double rise occurring when two selected the same morsel. We angled on for a while, hardly moving from our first selected stations, and meeting with fair success, till we felt it high time for something to eat. At our al-fresco luncheon we turned out our panniers and compared their contents. Though the water is without preservation, and its outgoing rivulet impassable for trout, this tarn had for years offered to anglers a fair stock of fish, averaging three to the pound. In the twenty lying on the shingle more than half were half-pounders. No other tarn in the same basin could give a return equal to this, though many are closely watched and their stock frequently replenished. Moreover—and this peculiarity was uniform to a marked degree—every fish was covered with large crimson blotches, more than treble the normal size.

After our meal we returned to the waterside; the dimples caused by rising fish became fewer and fewer, and our sport waned. By about four p.m. the shoals within casting range were unapproachable, though now and again there would be a sharp sequence of rises further out. Had I not flogged and played myself tired by this time, I doubt not that the curious poaching instrument I had picked up from beneath a boulder would have found employment. The lath, as used on our mountain tarns, is a short board, its lower edge weighted so as to float the whole upright, to which are attached several baits on short lengths of gut. The contrivance is floated out from some point where the breeze can cause it to move, and allowed to cross the most fishy portions of the water. Of course, the operator need give it little attention in transit. He retrieves it on the further shore, and easily lands what trout there are on the hooks. The method is a most deadly one, and I am glad that there was no real temptation to resort to it.

III. At Mayfly Time

About the period when the angler in mountain tarns watches for the bracken-clock, his confrÈre by less elevated waters is eagerly looking for the coming of the mayfly. In pools set like diamonds in green woods, or in the still reaches of streams, night fishing is now much resorted to. The gauzy-winged mayfly flutters about as long as a glimmer of light plays on the face of the waters, while long after amber night has settled over field and wood and height the trout remain on the feed.

It is evening. A narrow road carries us rapidly towards fresher and cooler air. The luscious green of unshorn fields, decked with starlike forms of white and red and blue, is giving place to the domain of bramble and gorse and rock scarce veiled with soil. At the summit of the road the glories of sunset burst upon us. The sun is sinking between a thin cloud and a line of rugged hill-tops. Through this interval rays of silver and red and pearl are gleaming, dividing the blue west as though with ploughshares of heaven’s own fashioning. But to us chiefest interest lies in the gleaming waters in the middle distance. A fir-wood bounds their further shore; gorse and whin grows luxuriantly on the moor around. One or two small islets, hung with lichen-poisoned sallows, are in the larger section; the merelet is almost divided by two jutting tongues of scrub.

In ten minutes we are by the water’s edge. The gorgeous lights in the western sky have dulled; rose succeeds the fiery red, silver turns to yellow and to gray-blue. The air resounds to the wingings of tiny insects, yet there is a great peace underneath it all. Broken—yes, broken by the quavering wail of the plover pacing the grassy marge near its nest; by an occasional crash, as a heavy trout leaps high and falls back from its keen pursuit. But stay a moment yet, ere the rod is drawn out, to watch the ephemerÆ dancing just above the surface of the water. They wheel in scores, they soar by hundreds; yet every movement seems to bring death close, for one here and one there, in a clumsy swerve, touches the water: its frail wings are damped so that it cannot rise again to the airy quadrille of its companions. But they mark not its absence. The dangerous game is not checked. The fallen insect makes one or two attempts to raise itself; in wild, erratic circles it spins round and round, is floated by the faint breeze of eventide toward the shore at our feet. Yard after yard it gradually comes nearer; then suddenly we see the triangular back-fin of a trout in close attendance. A flash—the fin has disappeared; another, and the dark body of a trout leaps half out the water, and as it supplely curves over the poor mayfly is forced into a maw already distended with like unfortunates.

Scores of fish are on the alert to-night—‘the water is fair wick wi’ ‘em,’ as our companion says—waiting for the downfall of the aerial rejoicers just out of their reach, though here and there an impatient one makes a huge leap for a bonne-bouche.

In a trice the rods are out and ready; every moment is of value, for tarn trout are capricious in their feeding periods, and may suddenly and absolutely cease to rise to their most cherished atoms. J—— takes left and I take right shore and begin. I am hampered at first by a series of tiny bogs, but in a few yards reach a gorse-covered promontory. This proves a capital station for a cast; my line swings far and true to where I last saw a struggling mayfly sucked down. My fly—why, a moment ago I picked up and impaled a mayfly, far less difficult to manage than the armour-plated bracken-clock. In less than five minutes my first trout was ashore, a monster over two pounds in weight. But this is a mere of great trout. I remember some six years ago the bed, which had been drained for some time, being reflooded, and a large number of yearling trout being turned in. For some seasons no angling was done. The stock grew great in size, though doubtless, seeing there are no redds, not even a streamlet passable for minnows, available, there was no increase in numbers. The feed is abundant, weeds and other cover plentiful, and, save for the cursory (and cursed) visits of a swan from a mill-dam some miles away, the enemies to fish-life are few.

While these observations are being passed, my rod is being plied assiduously. My fly, planted though it often is in tempting positions over lurking trout, is again and again drawn out untaken. A sharp eye has my quest. See! the wings of the fly, though as deftly placed on the water as my craft finds possible, are bedraggled with constant immersion, and is therefore considered unpalatable by the fish. It doesn’t take a moment to change it, and with the next cast—aimed at that monster in the lee of that islet, behind whose descending shoulders the parted waters have just gurgled together—comes success. The faint feel of a bite travels to my hand, and I strike. There is a sudden slack of the line; then, as the rod-point is raised to continue the strain, a dead pull; then to right the trout makes a sudden rush. I scarcely have followed it than forward my fish dives and downward, and to the resistance is added the entanglement of a bunch of water-weeds. Carefully I get my trout away from this. There is another run forward—a more disturbing one this time indeed—followed by a cl’ck backward and a salmon-like leap a yard out of the water. I am taken aback at the manoeuvre, and Salmo levenensis has obtained some valuable yards of liberty, each adding to its chances of breaking away; and, sure enough, with what must have been a double back-turn by the fish, my line is hitched round a hidden snag, and, as my trout and I put on pressure from our opposite ends, parts.

What size did it look like as that leap was made? Nay, trouble me not. The rascal has got a hook and a piece of gut, undeniably my property, and is still at large, if a trifle discommoded. Well, well! J—— had a turn with a cunning trout from this point three evenings ago, and was defeated more ignominiously even than I; so he can’t crow over me. But that fish knows its way about in a fashion and practises manoeuvres I for one don’t like.

My next trout, obtained after hooking a submerged tree and tangling in a clump of water-lilies, fights gamely and gives me some breathless moments. When it comes to the landing-net, I am surprised at its smallness, considering its splendid defence—four ounces or less. Well, back it goes! It deserves a new lease of freedom.

Now the gorging trout retire to the middle of the tarn. It is provoking to watch them rising freely far out of reach. Then the silence deepens; the sharp splashes and gurgles of rising trout gradually stop. My rod must be laid aside, for J—— is signalling across the water.

‘Come on round!’ he calls. ‘I want some baccy.’

If J—— is not fishing, he must be smoking; therefore he is perpetually running short of some adjunct to his passion. We will walk quietly round to where he is.

From the reed-beds the coot murmurs to its mate; now and again we hear soft rumblings as they paddle about. A bevy of wild-duck squabble in undertones at another point. J—— has wandered up the further shore meanwhile. A plover whirls up from his feet, ‘squealing like a stuck pig.’ He growls as we fiercely denounce his carelessness.

The soft cutterings in the reed-beds cease as the wild ‘teeu-wits’ re-echo over the tarn; worse than that, in the half-light we see a small dark body nimbly run along, and without a splash take the water. It is an otter disturbed from his nightly gleaning of crayfish. Now we come to the head of the tarn. A wide series of bogs and mud-holes, with a straggly path over the few sound spits of grass, lie in front of us. We can see the distant hills limned against the softly starlit sky. Bay and shore and bush on either side the faint blue water are in fair sight; but though the fairies have traced it with tufts of bog-cotton, the narrow track is invisible to us. One or two slight slips, ankle-deep in a slough, and we are halfway across. Here a stretch of water, perhaps eight feet wide and a foot deep, interposes—the channel by which on occasion storm-water drains from the upper bogs. Many a slab of rock has been placed here to expedite the crossing, but in a week each has sunk too deep in the soft ooze to be of use. To find the uppermost of the stones to-night will require nicety of judgment, even though the landmarks before and behind us are easily recognisable.

‘Nothing venture, nothing have.’ A frolicsome youth essayed to cross here in broad daylight not many moons ago. He made two steps safely, then trod on the edge of a stone, which capsized and threw him into the channel. He was fished out covered with mud and slime. However, to-night we encounter no such tragedy.

J—— now calls on us to hurry up. We crash through the prickly gorse to his side.

‘Do you know, you fellows, what I have just seen? A moment ago a big eel—I could see it clearly in the dark—slid down that grass-track and took the water. It must have come down from the other tarn’—a quarter of a mile away.

‘Old Jack Brock tells of meeting an eel sliding one wet night between Skeggleswater and Longsleddale. It was more than half a mile from a stream big enough for it to swim in.’

‘Bedad!’ interposes J——, whose knowledge of natural history is full of strange intervals of ignorance, ‘and do eels swim? I thought they wriggled along the bottom like snakes.’

These episodes of eel-travelling may be a little beyond the truth, but J—— doesn’t believe so, giving as evidence against our sweeping assertions to the contrary some marvellous fish-lore. After that he clutches the tobacco-pouch closely, and in a few minutes a reek of pungent smoke tells us that his passion demands whole-hearted attention.

The trout come on the feed again ere morning. They are specially eager by the shallows, where hundreds of becalmed mayfly corpses await them. J—— avers at dawn that he saw a trout rub itself against a reed on which a mayfly hung with such violence that the insect was dislodged, fell into the water, and was eaten up.

IV. Evening Fishing

One of our best beats lies between the mill-sluice and the top of Beckmickleden. The long shallow dam is succeeded by pools to the old ford, above which is a rocky stretch, and then more pools, some floored with mud and shingle, others with naked rock. Coppices fringe one side of the stream the whole way, and the lavish falls from their overhanging branches go some way towards attracting large fish to these haunts. At flood-time few anglers are disappointed of heavy panniers, but the chief repute of the water is for evening fishing. Many a time alone or with a companion have we wandered along this portion of the river.

The day had been hot and bright; but at evening a faint breeze stirred the leaves, and around the declining orb the clouds formed into a solid bank. I now saw my friend approaching along the riverside, rod in hand. This lean, alert man was one of the best fly-makers and selectors for miles around, and the river held no secret from him. Where everyone else failed he succeeded. He knew where the best fish lay, and the surest methods to get them. Our greetings were short, for I required little urging to join in an expedition to the upper waters.

In ten minutes we approached a water-hewn ravine, and shortly reached the upper mill-dam. Across the narrow stretch of wimpling dark waters, buried almost by towering elms, was a tiny hamlet, but on our side a cornfield was fronted with a row of bloom-spangled briar-roses. The station selected was near the foot of the pool, a place from which we could throw to the vicinity of the sluice. My companion chose me a couple of winged flies, and told me to cast lightly, as the water was bringing down a good many dead insects from the grasses and trailing bushes in its course. Rod in hand, I stood a moment. The fish were rising a long way out, and it took time to get the flies so far without a splash. I had been conceded the best situation, and my friend had gone some way upstream, where he had located fair sport. It would, perhaps, be five minutes before I got my line into the right place, but when I did success came fairly promptly. I was ruefully considering how long my spine and shoulders would stand the labour, when my fly was sucked down. I struck, but without success. Sir Trout had selected a floating body not six inches from where my counterfeit floated. In the second I had looked round for my companion, my eye had been off the lure, and it speaks well for the flymaker’s skill that I could not distinguish my own among the others floating down. I was raising my rod to try another cast, when the fly was taken in reality—not leapt at with a sudden splash, but quietly sucked down without its taker raising a ripple. I could scarce believe it had gone, till a faint tremor passed up the distended line, and then I struck home. Instantly I knew that a big trout was on tow, for my rod swayed and bent as I put on strain. The fish did its little best to get off, but wrist and eye worked for once in unison, and I speedily was reeling it along the surface. This proved to be a dark-coloured trout, but the next was a beautifully scaled one—my friend pronounced it a Salmo iridens, the American rainbow trout, a number of which had some time since been turned into the river.

The head of this dam has deteriorated from an angler’s point of view since a family of swans were quartered on it. In my school-days old Jimmy, our veteran angler, would frequently stand by the mouth of the marsh drain there, and take his six or eight fish regularly every evening for a week. A few minutes on, casting at every rise in the purling dubs, and following down every whirlpool, we come to the old ford, and then the bridge. To-night the occupants of the deep pool are not inclined to feed.

Above the bridge the river descends for about two hundred yards over very rocky bottom, where the stream swirls down without a pool or a yard of slack water. During the last two years a fringe of wych-elm has been rooted out on this ride, and a number of good casting-places opened up, for under cover of frothing waters good fish frequently lie, and there is great exhilaration in fighting a stout trout on whose side is the stream commanding a heavy drag on both line and prize. Immediately we reached this point T—— came up with a fresh fly, a gray drake. This fly is not very popular with local anglers, but my friend explained that, after several seasons of close observation, he had found no fly of equal merit during close, warm evenings on this reach of rushing water. I had been previously referred to another local enthusiast for corroboration. ‘Yes,’ said he, in a quaint, homely dialect impossible to transfer to paper, ‘one night we were coming down by the Low Barn, and Tom told me of the gray drake. I didn’t believe in it, so he put one on for me. The water was dashing down and splashing among the stones, but after a bit I found a fish. And, sure enough, at the drake it came with a rush. Well, I threw again and again at different places, getting in ten minutes three of the finest fish I ever did. Then my luck seemed to change, and though I got plenty of bites I could never land a fish. Tom at last got disgusted with my bad work, and prepared to take the rod over, but on examining the fly we found that the hook had broken off short at the shank. Of course, my failures were thus explained with honour.’ Our own experience at this point was much as above; I will not inflict details.

By this time the evening waxed old, the sky grew dusky, the fiery red in the west faded to rose colour, then died out to a faint blue, which as the hours passed intensified to azure, to indigo, and to ultramarine. In the north a pale sheen lit up the sky almost to the zenith—the night-glow—and here by the riverside, between the partly-light sky and the mirroring waters, there was no difficulty in making out any necessary detail. The black gnat had disappeared about sundown, but my friend was now using large sulphur-coloured moths. As in coming up we had used three different lures, I asked if any further variation would be necessary, but the bustard would hold till daybreak, when the hour for clear water worm arrived. Personally, in fishing this reach I should have held to black gnat and night-owl only.

On one side of the long pool selected for our evening’s angling the land rose in a sheer oak-clad bluff, while on the other the coppices, interspersed with flowery avenues, swelled upward in less abrupt line. The fishing was delightful; over the mellow rattle of the incoming stream now and again came the splash as a trout leapt up at the flies whirling above. Our station was in the shadow, else our movements would have been clear to the fish. My friend told me a true angler’s story concerning this dub. After an evening’s angling, he and another were sitting on a rock smoking and talking in subdued tones. Suddenly there was a scuffle almost beneath their feet, and Jack struck towards the scene of the disturbance with his rod-stock. There was a sudden squeal, and the surprised anglers found that the random blow had almost decapitated a young rabbit. Doubtless, frisking along as is common with its kind, it had not noticed the angler’s proximity. After an hour’s successful work we moved still further upstream, clear of the ravine. Here the river has worn a narrow channel into the upper edge of a rock-stream, forming a deep pool, in which iris and long aquatic grasses flourish. The light here was much better, and I rapidly reduced my experienced companion’s lead in captures. At about one a.m. there was a short pause in the fish’s feeding, during which we cast in vain. My comrade promptly noticed this, and for half an hour we left the waterside that he might show me the hole in the ground where some two hundred dead swallows were found after a late sudden frost, and also to take me to a circle of ancient dwarf crab-apple trees, planted, he averred, by Druids of old. In this expedition we also came across a heron, standing poised on one leg in shallow water. Scared at our approach, it winged away uttering a wild alarum; and we were surprised to notice three others of its gaunt kindred make away from near reaches. Of other waterside life, the otter since dusk had been frequently in sight—he lives without fear of a pack nowadays in our river; the dipper and the kingfisher had retired at sunset, but the whitethroat’s song had been constantly in our ears. Game, unseen, had rustled hither and thither in the coverts.

The sky to eastward was brightening when we returned to our rods. My companion told me to do my best, for time was passing; but never a bite came my way. He was more fortunate, for a long cast down the dub was taken. The fish on feeling the barb, however, went through a number of desperate manoeuvres. I heard the struggle, then noticed my friend disgustedly drawing in his line. Probably by tangling the gut round some jagged corner of rock the fish had got away.

V. About the Fish-spear

Every hour of the short period the salmon spends in fresh water his life is threatened. The sportsman’s method is by rod and line, but the poacher kind incline to the net and the fish-spear. The use of the former has been frequently and fully described; but the spear, not being favoured by the wholesale plunderers of our streams, has been less to the fore. The fish-spear, gaff, or leister (practically, if not quite, identical weapons), is used by the occasional poacher mostly, by the labourer who cannot resist the temptation to take one or two of the great salmon occupying the rock-pools in his immediate vicinity.

There was at one time a practice, in the Derwent and other salmon streams of our Lake Country, of spearing the fish from horseback. The horse was driven into mid-stream at some shallow where the uprunning fish were bound to show themselves, and the rider, armed with a long lance, struck at such fish as he could reach. Apparently some of our forefathers were very keen on this sport, for over a hundred years ago a certain gentleman offered a public wager to kill more salmon from horseback in a stated stream than any comer. So far as records show, the challenge was never taken up. Clarke, the pioneer of Lake Country angling literature, states that in his day (circa 1760) many gentlemen came regularly to Patterdale in autumn to join in the sport of spearing the great lake trout which had run up the Goldrill from Ullswater.

Dalesmen carried torches at night to the great pools to show the sportsmen where the shoals of spawning fish lay. The result of this wholesale destruction was that the monster in question—its weight is variously estimated from sixteen to sixty pounds and over—gradually dwindled in numbers, and is now almost, if not quite, extinct in the great lakes.

My earliest recollection of the leister is also my earliest of anything pertaining to angling. Below our two-arch stone bridge is a pool, perhaps twenty yards long and fifteen wide. During great floods in autumn, salmon very occasionally pass the weirs as far as this, beyond which they are never seen. There was some little excitement, therefore, when the blacksmith showed a salmon resting in the bridge-dub, and at once attempts were made to capture it. But the fish frequented the rushing waters just behind the cut-water of the bridge, and no one could get at it. A neighbouring farmer brought his gun, and fired three shots without effect. I fancy, as I recall the creamy turmoil at that point, his mark would be a difficult one. Finally the blacksmith forged a fearful weapon—a hand garden-fork fixed on to a shaft. Armed thus, he clambered down the cut-water as near as possible to his quarry, and made several lunges. I remember well, for I was not far away, leaning over the ledge of the bridge, seeing the square tail of the fish show through the froth of the ‘rush’ as it turned downstream. But though this attempt was a failure, the smith and the cobbler and the villagers assembled noted that, when disturbed from its favourite haunt, the giant retired to the shade of a big tree just below. With this extra information, the smith climbed down next day to where the fish was lying, and, carefully poising his weapon, I watched him plunge it again and again at an invisible body in the water. Then up he scrambled at great pace, crossed the bridge out of my sight, and disappeared down the stile at the other end. I heard a crackling of boughs, and a few moments later Dove returned carrying the big fish—I remember that its tail was flapping convulsively—in his leathern apron. Of course, the whole affair was kept as quiet as possible, lest the water-bailiff, hearing, should bring the law down on the offenders. Being a very small child, my presence was unheeded; but, try as they would, the cobbler and the smith could not persuade me that the heavy burden in the leathern apron was simply a black river-cobble. I insisted it was the fish. Years later I was told that my recollection of the whole affair was quite correct.

The favourite period for spearing the fish is, of course, during the hours of darkness. More than once I have seen men rendezvous in a lonely spot near our weir. Many a salmon getting thus far up the river at nightfall lies in the deep rock-basins till day returns, and on that his enemies reckon. In the woods fringing the rocks, a close search will at any time discover three or four leisters hidden by their most recent users. As dusk deepens into night the poachers come out; only one is armed with a spear, the other carrying a bag, and the third a dark lantern. When the water’s edge is reached, a brief ray shows where the fish are lying. The spearman, picking out his fish, plunges his weapon. If the stroke goes true, the salmon is rapidly jerked out, to be killed by the bagman. This goes on so long as a fish can be reached.

At other times, from the windows of a rural lodging, I have watched just before dawn stealthy lights flickering by the pools in another river, and two or three hours later have breakfasted off salmon showing leister-marks. Leistering being, of course, a slow process, the villagers alone are supplied, but at a rate per pound which seems to make the game very unsatisfactory from a profit point of view.

I have in my mind’s eye one particular scene. In half-flood the river is dashing beneath a hog-backed stone bridge; all around is darkness. The lower slopes of the great braes are invisible, their summits but dimly in view against the cloudy sky. Now and again a few stars rush across a rift in the upper blackness. Along the water a dim, uncertain light plays, showing sharp currents breaking and swirling over unseen reefs, or roaring in white fury against the dark, unyielding boulders here and there visible in the bed. After a few minutes’ wait, a labourer comes panting up; he is a well-known ‘small-scale’ poacher, the plague of the keepers for miles around.

‘Old Carson is out to-night,’ said the new-comer, ‘but he’s away up behind the weir.’

For a moment we didn’t gather the meaning of this, nor of the immoderate fit of laughter our acquaintance indulged in. Then it struck us that, by making a long dÉtour, he had wiled the water-bailiff far from the series of pools we intended to ‘work.’ In a moment we were over the wall and were deep among the ash-woods fringing the water, following the poacher, who trod the narrow, stony path with the ease and silence of long accustom. In a few minutes he stopped. So intense was the shadow that we cannoned into him before we knew of his halting.

‘Mind where you are coming,’ he growled, in a whisper. As he spoke we could hear a faint dragging and a rustling of dead leaves somewhere in the darkness near his feet. Now we came into the river-bed, where it was comparatively light. The poacher, we saw, had drawn a leister, as well as a bag and a lantern, from a secret place in the river-bank. In a few seconds he prepared for action; then, handing me the lantern, he spoke in a low voice:

‘You keep close to me, and when I give the word turn the light on to the slack water. And you’—turning to my companion—‘had better pick up and bag what fish I stick [pierce].’

Now the three of us crawled stealthily along the rocks bounding the rushing stream. Slack water indeed! In that tumult of fosse and rock and rapid it did not seem likely that a yard of smooth surface would be found. But my judgment was wholly amiss. Here and there, between the eddying current and the hard shore, were quite long stretches without a single ripple, and near the head of one such the poacher stopped suddenly.

‘There’ll be something here,’ he said. At a rustle of his hand I glided forward. ‘Now show a light on the water just in under my feet.’ I did so, and there quite half a dozen silver-sided salmon lay, with their heads upstream, never thinking that that vagrant gleam meant death for one or more of their number. I saw the spear plunge into the water; the nearest fish turned, struck through the vitals, floating in the faint swirl towards the head of the pool. My companion, however, was alert, and seized the carcass before it was tumbled far away down the stream. Meanwhile the poacher prepared for another stroke; again I directed my shaft of light, and again he struck. But the shoal had floated further into the stream, and he failed to reach them from that station.

Now he stepped waist-deep into the pool, directing me to move so as to give a very brief flash across the water. I did so, and another kill was registered, after which the poacher proposed that we should try another place. Accordingly, we moved downstream, walking wherever possible in the shadow of the trees.

A great trough between high banks was our next halting-place. Looking carefully through a screen of bushes, we saw dim figures moving about the lower end of the level water.

‘Some poachers from the town, I reckon,’ whispered our spearman. ‘They’re fools to try netting here, where there’s hundreds of rocks on the bottom to tear their net to ribbons.’ Half an hour or more we stood there watching with all our eyes. But little did we gather, save that the poachers were not averse to plunging into the ice-cold stream to release their net whenever fouled by a boulder or a piece of sunken brushwood. Then, ‘Lie down, quick,’ whispered frantically the poacher; and though we were standing on a bed of soaking, half-rotten leaves, down we went. On the moment, up into the sky from a point just beyond the far end of the pool, soared a rocket. My eyes watched its flight anxiously, watched it burst into a shower of stars which, slowly floating down, illuminated wood and water and rock clearly. The keepers evidently had knowledge of some trespassers. Was it of us or of the netmen, who at the first roar of the rocket dispersed into the woods, abandoning their net in the river? The poacher’s sharp eyes had seen the first spark struck by the keepers, and he had warned us as far as possible.

We were clearly in a predicament. Run for it! No; long ago every avenue from the woods would be guarded. With the wet soaking through our clothes, we lay in the thicket. One of the netmen rushed past, crashing through the dead branches within a yard of us. Half a minute later there was a shout and the sounds of a scuffle from the direction he had taken. Another minute, and, horridly suggestive of personal probabilities, two keepers walked their prisoner past us in the darkness. Not twenty yards away one set up a shout, inquiring the success of the carefully-laid trap.

‘We’ve got the lot!’ sounded from across the water—a reply which relieved us in so far as we now thought no especial watch was being kept for us. It was a long, weary time before the poacher signified that it was safe to proceed.

Down the slimy rocks we descended as silently as possible, drawing towards the head of the long trough. You may be sure that we kept a very sharp lookout as we moved into the half-light of the river-bed, but neither sight nor sound of lurking danger was there. At a sign I turned my shaft of light on the clear waters; the poacher, selecting his salmon, struck unerringly, and the fish was bagged. Again I showed the light, but, though the leister poised, the stroke was never made, for up to the gloomy sky another signal tore. This was for us in very deed.

‘Into t’ water,’ cried the poacher, ‘or we’re caught!’

There was no time for contemplating the darkling stream, or for shivering on the brink—the terror of the police-court is mightily great. In the three of us stepped; knee-deep the cold was horrible, wrist-deep the feeling was worse, but before bottom was touched the water was neck-high, and the chill seemed to freeze our very marrow. The poacher we still had confidence in, for he had been in scores of similar tight corners; with arms outstretched he pressed us close to the rocky bank, which for six feet almost overhung. When the rocket stars had faded away, I noticed a light travelling along the water and the further bank upstream; the keepers apparently knew we had not resorted to the woods, and were examining the rocky brink. I heard them moving high above our heads, and saw the gleam of lanterns light up the running waters almost within arm’s length, then pass on without a pause. The chill of the water was forgotten in that breathless five minutes, but it was again racking us when the poacher said:

‘Now we’re safe for a bit. Sink that salmon bag with a couple of stones, and we’ll make downstream.’

The three of us were fair swimmers, so made little of the distance to the foot of the trough, where, emerging, we crawled cautiously up the bank, and by devious ways passed through the wood. Though chilled through and through, we still had escaped capture, for which we were thankful.

The fish! Oh, our poacher must have found his way again to the pool ere daybreak and rescued the sunken bag, for our landlady came to us at breakfast—a fine piece of salmon was on the table—bustling with information.

‘Do you see that salmon? Well, what do you think? I found a whole big fish hanging up in the cart-house, with all the cats on the farm watching it, first thing this morning. The keepers must have run some poacher very hard before he left his fish like that.’

Needless to say, the good lady was unaware that we had spent our night otherwise than in sleep, and that two wet suits of clothes were being surreptitiously dried behind a pile of sacks in the boiler-house.