If a writer happens to be an angler, he will often find himself when in holiday mood on the banks of a trout stream. There is long warrant for the association of these two callings. Since the day of Izaak Walton, whom we still follow with such delight in his rambles beside the Dove or the Lea, the hand whose chief office it is to hold the pen has again and again, in hours of leisure, been found wielding the rod. We have modern examples in Charles Kingsley, whose “Chalk Stream Studies” may perhaps outlast many of his more ambitious essays in literature; and Mr. Froude has left among his miscellaneous writings a delightful record of a day’s fishing on a Hertfordshire stream. William Black, the novelist, never tired of recounting to me his various adventures in northern waters; and among modern writers, Mr. Andrew Lang may also be cited as an unwearying follower of the gentle art. I think, indeed, the alliance I have noted has in it something more than the accident of individual taste. There is no need for the long leisure of a set holiday to enable the man of letters to turn to his favourite recreation. The more violent forms of sport, which exact the devotion of a day, or of a series of days, require the enforced cessation of all forms of literary toil; but if the angler is fortunately located, work and play are by no means inconsistent and—granted that he is strong enough to resist during the earlier hours of the day the alluring call of the gentle south-west breeze with its alternating changes of sun and cloud—the morning may still hold him chained to his desk, sure of the reward of his industry in the evening ramble by the stream. And if his success as an angler be not too complete—and how often it is not!—the subject of his morning task will often renew itself in the happy solitude that counts among the many joys which angling can boast.

My own apprenticeship as a fisherman was passed among the Cumberland hills. Earlier experience had taken me no further than an occasional day on the upper reaches of the Thames, but even this cockney form of the sport in its annual recurrence was looked forward to with delight; and though the reward was no more than a few gudgeon, with a rare and occasional perch, such puny triumphs already whetted my appetite for the day when I should be admitted to the deeper mysteries of the fly-fisher’s art. My first master in this higher branch of the profession was no hero save to me. He was a gentleman of unsettled occupation, who dwelt in a cottage close beside Grasmere Churchyard, where Wordsworth lies buried; and by the more orderly characters of the village his wayward habits of life, involving constantly recurring lapses into inebriety, were regarded with stern reprobation. But for me, at the time, any doubt of the moral integrity of his character was silenced by the indisputable fact that he was an unrivalled professor of his art. I accepted him without misgiving as my comrade and my master, and this at least may be urged in mitigation of the harsher judgment of the village, that the night’s debauch, of which I was myself too often the reluctant witness, never hindered him from appearing under our cottage window as soon after dawn as I was prepared to set out on our daily expedition. His stock-in-trade as a fisherman was of the homeliest and scantiest description. His rod, consisting of two parts rudely spliced together, had been fashioned by himself; and by the side of the beck or the mountain tarn, with fingers that alcohol still left incomparably steady for their task, he would forge, with such rough process of imitation as he could command, the fly that he thought best suited for the conditions of the water or the day. In his company my brother and I rambled far afield. There was no upland stream or lonely pool within a circuit of five miles where our untried skill was not assiduously exercised. At that time the lakes and rivers of Cumberland were not so unceasingly flogged by the summer visitor, and there were sequestered haunts well known to him that were scarcely visited by the tourist at all.

One specially favoured spot was a tiny lake called Harrop Tarn, surrounded by a quaking bog, that lay in the hills above Thirlmere. My revered master, though a genuine sportsman, was not wholly irreproachable in regard to some delicate questions that lay on the border-land of poaching, and it was at Harrop, where the bank was in most places unapproachable, that he initiated us in the subtle mysteries of cross-lining. Be it counted to his honour, however, that these occasional departures from the stricter etiquette of his calling were never undertaken without enjoining on us the most solemn pledge of secrecy, a fact that at the time gave to the delights of almost certain success the added excitement of some unknown personal risk and danger.

But the Lake district, it must be confessed, was even then no paradise for the trout-fisher. It satisfied well enough the moderate ambition of a boy, who was still a bungler in the art, and it served, at any rate, as fitting ground for that patient apprenticeship which is necessary to all who desire to become proficient in the science and practice of casting a fly. Scotland, a few years later, offered a wider field, with the occasional chance of larger triumphs; and it was there that I first became conscious of my ability to meet my desired prey upon more equal terms. The upper reaches of the Tay, as it runs between Crianlarich and Killin, became for many years my favourite hunting-ground. The little inn at Luib was our resting-place, and Loch Dochart, which lay five miles up the stream, our favourite resort when wind and weather served. I can recall no sense of fatigue from the ten miles of mountain road that we had to trudge by the time our day’s work was done, though we were often drenched to the skin before we reached the inn at night. Nor did the inn itself, at that time, offer absolute protection against the weather, and sometimes when the storm beat heavily upon the uncertain roof we had to make our way upstairs to our rooms under the shelter of an umbrella.

Some years later I found my way to the Western Highlands as the invited guest of a dear friend who was almost as keen a fisherman as myself. I had often heard of the Salmo ferox, whose identity as a separate species is, I believe, still in dispute, but it was not until one memorable day upon Loch Awe that I encountered the monster in person. A fair morning had changed suddenly to a wild storm of wind and rain, and the surface of the lake was lashed into the semblance of a mimic sea. Fly-fishing was out of the question, and our gillie in despair suggested that we might put out the trolling rod with a large phantom minnow for bait, while we tried to make our way against the wind back to the landing-place. I do not think there was any expectation even on his part that the endeavour would yield any result, and I, who held the rod in hands that were nearly frozen by the beating rain, was entirely unprepared for the violent and sudden tug that nearly wrenched it from my grasp. But when that tug came, no one thought any more about the storm, and for nearly half an hour of throbbing excitement we were engaged in a fierce struggle that seemed at any moment likely to end in our ignominious defeat. Again and again the great trout rose to the surface and sprang high into the air, and then, with sudden change of tactics, it would dive, as it would seem, to the floor of the lake, and lie in sullen resistance to such pressure as we dared put upon the line. But the victory long delayed was ours at last, not, however, I will admit, without some element of disappointment in the appearance and quality of our captive. A long, lank fish, that scaled something between 8 lb. and 9 lb., but which, if it had been in condition, ought to have mounted to as much as half its weight again: an ugly fish, with the mouth and jaws of a pike, it still left us in wonder where it had found the force to offer so stubborn a resistance.

An occasional monster during a day which seems to offer the prospect of only smaller fry is one of the pleasurable excitements of loch-fishing in Scotland. Only a few years ago I set out in pleasant company from a cottage beside the shores of Mull, to make a picnic near one of the little lochs that lay about five miles up the hill. Two or three of us had taken our rods, but with no thought of a larger capture than the small brown trout and Fontinalis with which we knew these hill lochs were well stocked. The day was busily spent, and most of the party had already started homeward on the downward path, when the gillie who was with us said that he knew of another little loch about a mile over the hill, where rumour had it that there were certain larger trout which had never been induced to rise to the fly. My host and I, with one other companion, determined to make trial of this unconquered pool, and set out across the heather just as the sun was beginning to dip behind the shelter of the hill. It had been a scorching day, and was a lovely evening. As we came in sight of the little loch it seemed to us both that if these reluctant fish were ever to be lured to the net, the present was the most propitious occasion for the adventure.

It chanced that my friend had in his case a fine cast of drawn gut with a small floating fly, which a month or two before he had used on a southern stream; I myself had chosen an Alder of a pattern I had found efficient two or three years before on some of the little lochs above Glenmuich. Our gillie knew nothing of the mysteries of the dry fly, though he had heard tell of its wonders, and it was indeed mainly at his instigation that we were tempted to present this lure on the present occasion. We threw our lines almost simultaneously far out into the tranquil surface of the pool, but the luck was with my rival, for his fly had scarcely reached the water when there came a sudden flop and a splash, and it was evident by the mighty rush, that took out nearly the whole of the line from his reel, that the legend related to us by the keeper had a solid foundation in fact. It is astonishing what strength and persistence these larger lake trout display. A fish of equal weight in the Test or the Itchen would most assuredly have been brought to bank within half an hour or less, but on this occasion it was nearer three hours before our capture was complete. A part of our difficulty was due to the fact that the tackle was of the finest, so that it was impossible to put any strain upon the line; and even, at the last, when the struggle was practically at an end, there came the added difficulty that the long gloaming had fallen into darkness, and the application of the landing-net became a hazardous operation. Twice the line nearly parted when the fish was within less than a yard of the bank; but when it was safely netted it proved to be a splendid trout of something over 4½ lb., in perfection of colour and condition. It was under a moonless sky and in pitch darkness that we picked our way amid the rough boulders down to the valley below, where we were met within a mile of home by the rest of our party, who had already set out with lanterns to come to our rescue.

There is not often occasion for the use of the dry fly in the Highlands, though I remember employing it with some success one evening at Kinloch-Rannoch, where the waters of the river run with tranquil flow from the lake. But it is a delightful branch of the fly-fisher’s craft, of unending fascination to those who have once gained a mastery over its secrets. For some years I was in happy possession of a little cottage on the upper reaches of the Lea, where the narrow stream, in places no more than a few yards across, gave no hint, save to the initiated, of the heavy fish which found a home and haunt under its banks. It was, indeed, only during the annual rise of the May-fly that this little river made anything like a full announcement of its thriving population. During the weeks before and after this recurrent season of debauch, there was little chance of a heavy basket, and for that reason it made a delightful home for any one occupied in writing, to whom at those seasons the banks of the stream offered no compelling temptation. Two or three hours in the evening after work was done sufficed to test the chances of sport, and I was amply satisfied if I returned to the cottage at nightfall with a brace or a brace and a half of handsome trout. But with the advent of the May-fly my desk, I confess, was deserted. From my windows, as I tried to write, I could hear and see the constant splashing in the stream which proclaimed that the fish were already on the feed. The cottage and the stretch of river that belonged to it are, alas! no longer mine, and I am told that there, as in so many other southern streams, the rise of the fly is no more what it was ten years ago. In those days, on a favourable morning, the meadows that bordered the water were all alight with myriads of these beautiful ephemorae, and the stream itself, as far as the eye could trace its course, literally alive with the boil and splash of the feeding fish. For every fly that touched the water there seemed to be an attendant and expectant trout. Larger fish, that kept to their deeper haunts at other seasons, now took up their stations in mid-stream, and the veriest tiro in these favouring circumstances could scarcely go home with an empty basket. But there are days of luck and days of disaster at all seasons: days even during the May-fly time when the most skilful fisherman has sometimes to confess a series of mishaps, while a companion not a hundred yards away is crowned with good fortune. When the weed is heavy—and for my part I have a liking for the presence of the weed, and deprecate the close shearing of the stream which is too often the modern habit—it is inevitable that some of the heavier fish should make their escape. The most fortunate morning that I can recall was a basket of twelve fish, weighing in all 28½ lb.; and the largest trout that has ever fallen to my rod there, though by no means the largest known to the river, was within an ounce of 4 lb.

In days of early spring or late summer, when there is no rise of fly to tempt the angler, the keeper and I used to find congenial occupation in ridding the stream of some of the heavy jack that were apt in those days to come from Luton Hoo. It was he who first initiated me in the art, of which he himself was a past master, of securing these marauding cannibals by the aid of a running wire. Like many a good keeper, he had been in his boyhood something of a poacher, and even in those later days, when his morality was beyond reproach, be retained certain stealthy and secret ways that dated from the lawless times of his youth. At any likely bend of the stream, where a deeper pool rendered probable the presence of a jack, and when I might perhaps be deploring the fact that we had left our wires at the cottage, he would suddenly to my surprise produce an ash sappling that lay hidden in the long grass, not three yards away, with the running noose already attached to its point. Nothing could exceed the quickness of his vision in detecting the neighbourhood of his prey, and nothing could equal the incomparable steadiness of his hand as he reached far out across the stream and deftly passed the wire over the head of the jack as it lay half asleep in the sun. And then, before I was aware that the operation was complete, with a sudden wrench that almost cut the fish in twain he would lift a jack of 4 lb. or 5 lb. high into the air, and fling it over his head on to the bank. It was perhaps the recollection of his earlier poaching days that made him so zealous and watchful during the spawning season, which offers to the poacher his favourite opportunity. At these times he would spend long hours of the night beside the stream, never seeming to grudge any demand that was made upon his rest, and it was while he was so employed that he made capture of a large otter, whose marauding expeditions he had long reason to suspect. Otters, I think, are not common on that part of the Lea; certainly this was the only specimen brought to my knowledge during my long tenancy of the cottage. But even a single otter can work ruinous havoc among the trout, as we had then reason to know, and it was therefore with pardonable pride that, when I came down to breakfast one morning, he laid his dead victim out to view on the little lawn in front of the door.

I sometimes think that those who haunt the country, without conscious sense of its many beauties, are apt to learn and love its beauties best. How often the memory of a day’s shooting is indissolubly linked with the pattern of a fading autumn sky, when we have stood at the edge of a stubble field wondering whether the growing twilight will suffice for the last drive. And if this is true of other forms of sport, it is everlastingly true of fishing. There is hardly a remembered day on a Scotch loch, or beside a southern stream, which has not stamped upon it some unfading image of landscape beauty. It was not for that we set forth in the morning, for then the changing lights in a dappled sky counted for no more than a promise of good sport; during those earlier hours there is no feeling but a feeling of impatience to be at work; and the splash of a rising trout, before the rod is joined and ready and the line run through its rings, is heard with a sense of half-resentment lest we should have missed the favourable moment of the day. But as the hours pass, the mind becomes more tranquilly attuned to its surroundings. The keenness of the pursuit is still there, but little by little the still spirit of the scene invades our thoughts, and as we tramp home at nightfall the landscape that was unregarded when we set forth upon our adventure now seems to wrap itself like a cloak around us with a spell that it is impossible to resist. A hundred such visions, born of an angler’s wanderings, come back to me across the space of many years. I can see the reeds etched against a sunset sky, as they spring out of a little loch in the hills above the inn at Tummel. And then, with a changing flash of memory, the broad waters of Rannoch are outspread, fringed by its purple hills. And then, again, in a homelier frame, I can see the willows that border the Lea, their yellow leaves turned to gold under the level rays of the evening sun; and I can hear the nightingale in the first notes of its song as I cross the plank bridge that leads me homeward to the cottage by the stream.