amous New River
reservoirs. I was here introduced to many members of the fishing
club--men of the place--and became a member of the Stanley Anglers,
where I won some prizes, and of the somewhat famous and somewhat
high-class True Waltonian Society, which met at Stoke Newington. The
general result of this was that wherever there was fishing to be
secured I got it, and was seldom without opportunity of turning that
longing eye of which I aforetime spoke to the waterside. I made pretty
rapid progress too, for I became a well-known pike fisher at Stoke
Newington, got large chub and much perch, and generally took various
degrees in the piscatorial art.

Best of all, by means of my membership of the True Waltonians, I had
the run of the Rickmansworth water. It was here that I learnt
fly-fishing, even to the extent of catching my first trout, and here
that I went through a course of practice at some large dace which then
existed in the Colne; and they very freely, to the extent of half a
pound or so weight, took the dry fly, which in later years they did
not. As a very active travelling member of the special correspondence
staff of the _Daily News_ I went here and there on various errands, and
was soon known never to travel without my rod and creel. Then the
introduction to my old friend Gowing of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, as
I have already described, made me as eager to write as I was to fish;
and, in a word, this was how "Red Spinner" was manufactured.

Now I have explained how I became a practical angling writer, and the
half-dozen or so of books which I inflicted upon my brethren of the
Angle gradually came into existence. It is necessary to mention this
to account for the fact that the majority of what I write has appeared
before the public from year to year. Indeed, I did not allow the grass
to grow under my feet. My voyage to Queensland gave me a book, and a
series of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ chapters gave me another; and so
it went on from time to time, as I had the opportunity, in magazines
and papers, finding what I may call even a ready market for all I chose
to publish. The reader will understand, therefore, that after these
half-dozen books, if any of them are to be found registered against me,
there was not a great deal left for gathering together; and that is the
excuse for this volume which I have ventured to call the _Aftermath of
Red Spinner_. Indeed, just before the war broke out I had agreed