For example: when another man is
caught up in a branch he disengages his fly; I jerk at it till something
breaks. As for carelessness, in boyhood I fished, by preference, with
doubtful gut and knots ill-tied; it made the risk greater, and increased
the excitement if one did hook a trout. I can't keep a fly-book. I
stuff the flies into my pockets at random, or stick them into the leaves
of a novel, or bestow them in the lining of my hat or the case of my
rods. Never, till 1890, in all my days did I possess a landing-net. If
I can drag a fish up a bank, or over the gravel, well; if not, he goes on
his way rejoicing. On the Test I thought it seemly to carry a landing-
net. It had a hinge, and doubled up. I put the handle through a button-
hole of my coat: I saw a big fish rising, I put a dry fly over him; the
idiot took it. Up stream he ran, then down stream, then he yielded to
the rod and came near me. I tried to unship my landing-net from my
button-hole. Vain labour! I twisted and turned the handle, it would not
budge. Finally, I stooped, and attempted to ladle the trout out with the
short net; but he broke the gut, and went off. A landing-net is a
tedious thing to carry, so is a creel, and a creel is, to me, a
superfluity. There is never anything to put in it.
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