ANGLING NOTES

Press, Volume L, Issue 14889, 31 January 1914, Page 8

ANGLING NOTES

AN EVENING RISE. (By "Irox But.."') (s.ECIALI.T WRITTKN" FOB "THE rItKSS. 1 ') j Since early morning, everything within sunreach had parched,, aud baked, and roasted into its own liking, or the reverse; and all South Canterbury said "Oh. so hot, isn't it," or words that sounded worse; and even the angler who should have been patient. Just wilted in the torrid afternoon; and in absolute lack of encouragement from any trout, settled himself under somo willows to await the evening rise. In tho cooler pleasant hours, this is the forlorn ho]>c of the fisherman on too-bright streams, and though it is all too frequently a brief affair, some fortunate hatch of duns may convert it into a night-long revel at the expense of the trout. ■ Theoretic rules have arranged matters nicely, and if they are not invariably satisfactory, the consequent shdnesH- -\nust bo put down as a stray morsel of that '"rotten luck" which has been mentioned previously by so many anglers. In a proper, self-respecting evening rise, there is first tho sundown fall of spinners, which may perhaps continue during half-an-hour; and _ then should arrive the batch of lusty duns .which will change the languid spinneraocupting trout in_> the hearty eater whom we so desire. Last of all, when the fish apparently are fed-up with everything, and the dusk swiftly is giving place to dark, we may view tho faint occasional rings under the far hank, which betray tho trout who is finishing supper with a fluttering 6edge. Tlie hours up to seven of a January evening had been spent in a perspiring progress over heated stones, with rare glimpses in the lukewarm river of a presumably lukewarm fish, who felt much too limp to take notico of a fly. Now the sun, as a prelude to its nightly disappearance, vanished momentarily hehinrl a cloud that overhung tho hills; and we sat upright in the middle of our sandwich interval, to watch the surface for some sign of a. reviving trout. Mercifully, tho cloud broadened, so that the sun went down behind for its. temporary rest; and presently, across'the dimming prospect, an unmistakable circle and splash upon a ripple announced a feeding pounder, whom wo hailed as herald of "The Evening Rise." Eagerly we swished out \ a fitting length of line through the rod rings, and a trusted coachman fell above -. the boulder by which we had marked the splash. Instantly, as tho fly touched' water, a pounder had it, and anon the land-ing-net received his weight; so the angler became keen again, while more splashes in the ripple gave him Then, for a short quarter of an hour, the customary fall of spinners came thickly drifting, and' constantly I saw the '.surface marks of rising fish; landing sundry nearly-two-pounders, and in the rush and hurry of'angling against brief \ time, losing the greater half of those I hooked. Such losses will occur always,,if or no sooner has a trout fastened than you are the fact that an apparently larger fish is moving just a yard further out; and naturally the quarry at the end of the line is immediately* pulled- in towards the land-ing-net, long before ho is ready for a quiet resting-place. Next, I awaited the batch of duns that should have followed, but as it happened, some unforeseen circumstance forbade their trivial entry into the larger affairs of life; and once* again A found myself watching the errant sedge, in his flighty efforts to explore the. rapid flow. The evening rise is a time when the largest fish come out irom their dayJigtit holds', and cruise boldly abroad in search of prey; then is it wonderful that occasionally wo should hook ono of them, and sometimes lose him, and afterwards tell of our misfortune to a generally untrained and—so additiondreadful this—a perfectly unbelieving ear. All those dog stones may go down as though they had been oiled for the purpose, but whenever wo may chance to speak of troutunto an assembled company, a tolerating smilo gives token of an audience willing to feel interested: by. a fairy tale, but wholly deficient in fish-story swallowing power. Now, this is all because of a very . ancient Briton, who must have ranked as a very great angling authority in those early days, but who also, was not exactly trustworthy when relating his wonderful deeds. In the misty past, already technically known as the real Bricky Beginning—otherwise termed the Stone Age—this primeval man'fished with a line made of knotted witlnes and a jagged splinter of bono for a hook;.and most often he would get fast to a sea-serpent or some othet good old-fashioned monster who smashed lip his light outfit in.the first run. His friends who saw him return daily with only a few "sprats" in the basket, but bearing tales of the whales that got away, at last began to think matters .were a few sensations too thick and they said: "This fellow hath a false tongue." Thou the scandal spread through the fashionable cave palaces of all thp best people in the country; and ev*ii though ages have passed, it still remains, as a far > too convenient reproach to all fishermen , , ~ Bo'nil such as it may, 1 believe yet that in this particular evening rise 1 hooked and lost another recordbreaking trout. Just as the darkness came, looking upstream where the afterglow of sunset threw a gleam of half-light above the willows, the shadows appeared green-tinted with a rimming oi sold; and beyond, along the right hand shore on which I stood, stretched a fathom width of palest primrose coloured water, in which any movement was yet plainly to be seen. There, fifty yards away, 1 saw a widening circle, a second following ero the first had gone from sight,, and then a great brown back broke through the surface, as a monster fish cruised slowly up the shallow at the edge. Next came a space of dreadful aesireful hurry, during which I ran over about thirty of the intervening yards at a rate variously estimated between seventy and eighty miles an hour; switching out line as I went, stumbling over wanton boulders that insisted on getting in the way, and all the timo trying desperately to prevent an excited heart from taking up a permanent residence in my mouth. For the long score of yards before casting, I crawled on har.ds and suffering knicker-knees along the bank; and presently the fly fell fortunately in front of the big fish, so that he had mereiv to separate his jaws and absorb it. while Still continuing to cruise ahead. Then I struck, feariiig the tackle-smashing events that would surely follow, but tlie fish was far too big to let a littje thing like that worry

him, and only stopping to consider the species of his prickly mouthful, ho waddled out slowly into mid-river. A breathless interval ensued, of coaxing methods applied to an apparently tamo trout, but soon wo wero to be freed from any ideas of an easy conquest. Giving to the strain I put upon him. tho fish ncared tho shallow again calmly, but there I think' he must have caught sight of James waiting ready with a gaff. As if by magic, « nicefv-mannered trout was changed into *a rushing monster, plunging under the sweeping branches on the opposite side. Pausing at the very -thickest point in tho overgrowth, he swerved furiously into its cover, and tho line sprang back to mc minus the cast. Words failed us at the moment of misfortune, but now James will have it that the monster waa no more than a fifteen pounder; but, of course, James never hooked and lost him so he can have no true conception of his vasty size. Afterwards the rest of that evening rise was mixed up with haunting memories and mournful words; the flies were changed from coachman and alder to a poveril of the peak and a Thompson's favourite, and between them tho new flies—these four are quite among the best in the dusk—accounted for another brace of seeming sprats which really weighed more than a pound each; but sprats after whales appear strangely uninteresting. In the darkness I could still hear the sound of n stray rise, and from an. adjoining field an occasional murmur from two late workers who stooked a crop of wheat, but everything else grew curiously silent, and presently James departed in search of sleep. Then being alone I began to hear weird rustlings among tho willows, and xinaccountable whispers from tho field of corn. Certainly the little people were abroad all about mc, so I departed after James; and black or white in pool and rapid, the river sped -untroubled on its course to tho sea: