We had driven from a place about five miles distant,
and we had not driven three hundred yards before I remembered that we had
forgotten the landing-net. But, as I expected nothing, it did not seem
worth while to go back for this indispensable implement. We reached the
waterside, and found that the trout were feeding below the pendent
branches of the trees and in the quiet, deep eddies of the long
boat-pool. One cannot see rising trout without casting over them, in
preference to labouring after salmon, so I put up a small rod and
diverted myself from the bank. It was to little purpose. Tweed trout
are now grown very shy and capricious; even a dry fly failed to do any
execution worth mentioning. Conscience compelled me, as I had been sent
out by kind hosts to fish for salmon, not to neglect my orders. The
armour--the ponderous gear of the fisher--was put on with the enormous
boots, and the gigantic rod was equipped. Then came the beginning of
sorrows. We had left the books of salmon flies comfortably reposing at
home. We had also forgotten the whiskey flask. Everything, in fact,
except cigarettes, had been left behind. Unluckily, not quite
everything: I had a trout fly-book, and therein lay just one large salmon
fly, not a Tweed fly, but a lure that is used on the beautiful and
hopeless waters of the distant Ken, in Galloway.
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