Troutsmith (19 page)

I'd have crawled under a rock, but rocks are few and far between on the Hampshire chalkstreams. Duncan commiserated with me as we sat on the stone bench, and I replaced the tippet and put on another fly, a Pheasant Tail Nymph this time. Auld Red was still in his lie at the top of the cut, but now the great trout rested on the bottom, frightened and a bit sullen, perhaps. For some reason Duncan and I stayed where we were on the stone bench, watching the river, not saying much. I honestly don't know how much time went by—a half-hour, an hour, or a lifetime. The bell in the parish church tolled five o'clock. And then Auld Red lifted himself off the bottom and shook himself back together. Where before his fins had been closed up tight against his body, now they were extended and quivering in the slow currents of the Test. Duncan said, “He might take a nymph. Try him again.” I tried a half-dozen casts, but the little Pheasant Tail seemed to have lost its magic and Auld Red showed no interest. Maybe he'd seen too many Pheasant Tail Nymphs in his little corner of the world.

Duncan clipped the fly from the tippet and handed me a well-chewed mess of a fly from his own box. “It's a little Greenwell nymph. Seems to work well at this time of year.” he said. I tied it on and waded into position once again, but without much conviction. How many times must a scenario be repeated before we react to it by reflex, unconsciously? I don't know: thousands, maybe tens of thousands of times. All I know is that Auld Red gave no indication that he'd taken the nymph, but suddenly my right arm came up and he was well and truly hooked. He may have resembled a pudgy village alderman, but Auld Red still had something of the tiger in him and the fight was not without moments of high drama. Time after time he surged upstream on blistering runs and then dogged deep, trying to saw the tippet or rub out the fly on pieces of sunken masonry.

I confess I let out a rebel yell when Auld Red was in the net at last. Duncan wore a smile so big I thought he might split at the ears. We didn't have a camera, but we certainly savored the moment as we stood there, in the middle of the River Test, while the Pride of Whitchurch recovered his equilibrium and his goofy grin. There was no question about releasing Auld Red; every village should have a trout with a name. A pair of big grayling, sensing opportunity, had hastily moved in and taken over his lie when Auld Red was pulled out, but they fell back downstream immediately when the boss of the hole came home.

At the end of the day I think Duncan wanted to run all the way back to the Mill. There was no need. Unable to wait for news, Chas had walked out to meet us on the footpath at dusk, and he immediately perceived what had happened even before we said anything. “You lucky
bastards
!” he said, but I could see him smiling in the last light of evening.