To our disgust, on reaching the upper water we found it as thick as pea-soup.  Sheep-washing had been going on a mile or so above us.  Never having had any sport under these conditions in past times, we had quite decided to give up fishing for the day; but Tom Peregrine, who is ever sanguine, swore he saw a fish rise.  To our astonishment, on putting the fly over the spot, we hooked and landed a large trout Proceeding up stream, two more were quickly basketed.  When the water comes down as thick as the Thames at London Bridge, after sheep washing, the big trout are often attracted out of their holes by the insects washed out of the wool; but they will seldom rise freely to the artificial fly on such occasions.  To-day, oddly enough, they take any fly they can see in the thick water, and with a “coch-y-bondu” substituted for the may-fly, as being more easily seen in the discoloured water, any number of fish were to be caught.  But there is little merit and, consequently, little satisfaction in pulling out big trout under these conditions, so that, having got seven fish, weighing nine pounds, in the basket, we are satisfied.

As a rule, it is only in the may-fly season that the biggest fish rise freely; an average weight of one pound per fish is usually considered first-rate in the Coln.  On this day, however, although the may-fly was not yet properly up, the big fish, which generally feed at night, had been brought on the rise by the sheep-washing.

All the way home we are regaled with impossible stories of big fish taken in these waters, one of which, the keeper says, weighed five pounds, “all but a penny piece.”  As a matter of fact, this fish was taken out of a large spring close to the river; and it is very rarely that a three-pounder is caught in the Coln above Bibury, whilst anything over that weight is not caught once in a month of Sundays.  Last January, however, a dead trout, weighing three pounds eight ounces, was found at Bibury Mill, and a few others about the same size have been taken during recent years.  At Fairford, where the stream is bigger, a five-pounder was taken during the last may-fly.

We are pleased to find that our friend from London, who has been fishing the same water, has done splendidly; he has killed six brace of good trout, besides returning a large number to the water.  With a glow of satisfaction he

     “Tells from what pool the noblest had been dragg’d;
      And where the very monarch of the brook,
      After long struggle, had escaped at last.”

      WORDSWORTH.

We laid our combined bag on the cool stone floor in the game larder;

     “And verily the silent creatures made
      A splendid sight, together thus exposed;
      Dead, but not sullied or deformed by death,
        That seem’d to pity what he could not spare.”

      WORDSWORTH.