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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
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THE WAY OF A TROUT 
 WITH A FLY 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 MINOR TACTICS OF THE 
 
 CHALK STREAM 
 
 AND KINDRED STUDIES 
 
 Containing frontispiece plate of flies in colour 
 facsimile 
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 Field. — " A new doctrine of the chalk stream. Alto- 
 gether there is more variety between these covers than 
 is often to be found in volumes of thrice the bulk. That 
 the book is one of the most important yet written on the 
 subject of chalk-stream fishing our account of it will 
 have suggested." 
 
 Globe. — " Mr. Skues' . . . ingenuity is little less than 
 diabolical. But whether the angling fraternity in general 
 will be able to play on his fiddle is a question that they 
 will only be able to settle for themselves at the river- 
 side. In the person of Mr. Skues the wet fly has now 
 found its Chamberlain." 
 
 Birmingham Post.—" Charm of manner in the first 
 
 Elace, and all the fascination that attaches to attractive 
 eresy in the second." 
 
 Daily Chronicle. — " This book will add greatly to his 
 reputation, for it is clever, logical, and convincing." 
 
 Published by A. & C. Black, Ltd., 4 Soho Sq., London, \V. i 
 
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 TUMMEL 
 
 Plate I. THE BLUE DUN. 
 As rendered in ten different schools. 
 
THE WAY 
 
 OF A TROUT 
 
 WITH A FLY 
 
 AND SOME FURTHER STUDIES IN 
 MINOR TACTICS 
 
 BY 
 
 G. E. M. SKUES 
 
 (SEAFORTH AND s'oFORTH) 
 
 AUTHOR OF " MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM 
 
 CONTAINING THREE FULL-PAGE PLATES 
 TWO OF THEM IN COLOUR 
 
 A. & C. BLACK, LTD. 
 
 4, 5 & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. i 
 
 1921 
 
 fy*dr 
 
Trtnted in Qreat Britain, 
 
Z'H6*7 
 
 DEDICATED 
 TO 
 
 THE FLY-FISHERS' CLUB 
 
 IN GRATITUDE FOR MANY HAPPY HOURS 
 AND SOME PRICELESS FRIENDS 
 
 £1366400 
 
Myself when young did eagerly frequent 
 Doctor and Saint and heard great Argument 
 
 About it and about, but evermore 
 Came out by the same door wherein I went. 
 
 RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM. 
 
THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 When the Wise Man laid it down that there were three 
 things which were too wonderful for him — yea, four which 
 he knew not — he came to the climax with " the way of a 
 man with a maid." Some future Solomon will end with 
 a fifth — the way of a trout with a fly — for it combines the 
 poise of the eagle in the air, the swift certainty of a serpent 
 upon a rock, and the mystery of the way of a ship in the 
 midst of the sea, with the incalculableness of the way of a 
 man with a maid. Our aviators seem to be on their way 
 towards a solution of the way of the eagle in the air. The 
 mystery of the way of a ship in the midst of the sea has 
 yielded all its secrets to the persistence of modern man, 
 but the way of a man with a maid and the way of a trout 
 with a fly remain with us to be a delight and a torment 
 to thousands of generations yet unborn. 
 
 Vll 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Authorities darken counsel. An authority is a person 
 engaged in the invidious business of stereotyping and 
 disseminating information, frequently incorrect. Angling 
 literature teems with examples. I imagine that few 
 anglers have devoted more time than I have to the study 
 of authorities. From Dame Juliana to the latest issue 
 of the press there is scarcely a book on trout-fly dressing 
 and trout fishing which I have not studied and ana- 
 lyzed, and this conclusion seems to me inevitable. It 
 was not until I realized this that my reading became 
 any use to me. Up to that point I had been swallowing 
 wholesale, with my facts, all sorts of fallacies and inac- 
 curacies, alike in the matter of dressings and their use, 
 and what they were intended to represent. From that 
 point on an author became merely a suggester of experiment 
 — a means of testing and checking my own observations 
 by the water side, and no longer a small god to be believed 
 in and trusted as infallible. And that is all an author, 
 writing on any progressive art or science, ought to be. 
 It is good now and again to have the ideas and discoveries 
 of an epoch analyzed in the crucible of some acute intellect, 
 and the problem restated, but this age has put an end to all 
 belief in finality, and the business of that analysis should 
 be to clear away the lumber of the past, while preserving 
 all that is of value, and not to add more than can be helped 
 to the lumber that some later writer will strive — probably 
 in vain — to clear away. An authority who lays down a 
 law and dogmatizes is a narcotic, a soporific, a stupefier, an 
 opiate. The true function of an authority is to stimulate, 
 not to paralyze, original thinking. But then, I suppose, he 
 wouldn't be an authority. 
 
 Since the very beginning of things men have talked fish 
 and fishing, just as they have talked religion and metaphysics, 
 
 ix b 
 
x FOREWORD 
 
 without progress commensurate with the amount of 
 labour and energy expended, and with as many divergencies 
 to right and left and as much slipping back and floundering 
 in morasses of error. That the subject is so eternally 
 interesting is my only excuse for the collection of the 
 speculations contained in the ensuing pages. That they 
 advance the sum of human knowledge on the subjects with 
 which they deal is too much to hope. 
 
 For more years than I care to look back upon it has 
 been my ambition to write a work upon trout-fly dressing, 
 and it was my desire that it should exceed in scope all 
 previous books on the art, and should examine and elucidate 
 the methods of all the schools of dressing which this country 
 has produced. But I was determined not to rush hastily 
 into print before experience had sufficiently ripened my 
 knowledge to give me assurance that my deductions were 
 sound. I read omnivorously all that had been written on 
 the subject, and the more I read the more I became impressed 
 with the conviction that to make any advance upon the 
 past it would be necessary to discard much of the learning 
 of the past, to go back to the beginning, and to think out 
 and rediscover the principles upon which the practice of 
 the art should be based. 
 
 It is a singular fact that among the many works which 
 have dealt with the subject of trout-fly dressing, it is 
 impossible to find one which deals at once practically and 
 comprehensively with the theory of the art. Cutclifle's 
 " Trout-fly Fishing on Rapid Streams," one of the most 
 intelligent works on fly fishing ever written, explores a 
 corner of the subject, but his patterns are mainly lures, and 
 when he comes to deal with patterns which are, or purport 
 to be, imitations, representations or suggestions of the 
 natural fly, he is manifestly out of his depth. 
 
 It therefore became my plan to attempt a work on the 
 theory of the art of trout-fly dressing, with enough of the 
 practice to illustrate the various points made and the 
 
FOREWORD xi 
 
 methods of the various schools. I would give much to be 
 able to leave behind me, when I pass over the ferry, a work 
 which would extricate the subject from the confusion in 
 which generations of inaccurate observation and loose 
 thinking and writing have involved it. 
 
 It was an ambitious project, but that would not have 
 deterred me from the attempt; and I only gave up the 
 project when I reached the conclusion that there is one 
 governing factor in the treatment of the subject upon 
 which I know nothing, and upon which — so far as I can 
 learn — the scientific knowledge of my age is unable to help 
 me. I refer to the vision of the trout. As those who 
 penetrate beyond the opening pages of this volume will 
 discover, there are, in my opinion, reasons for suspecting 
 that the eyesight of the trout differs from that of man 
 in its appreciation both of form and of colour. In what 
 these differences consist, if they exist — and I do not pretend 
 that the evidence of their existence is conclusive — I am 
 entirely ignorant, and I see no means of lightening my 
 darkness any more than, as a being of three dimensions, 
 I see any prospect of appreciating the secrets of the fourth 
 dimension. If I could understand these differences, and if, 
 understanding them, I could put them into simple, lucid 
 English, comprehensible to fly dressers of every class, 
 then I could have given this generation a work on a subject 
 never yet comprehensively treated in any language, which 
 would at any rate have registered an advance in the art, 
 and would have done something to elevate it out of the 
 rut of convention, aggravated by empiricism, in which the 
 practitioners of the ages down to this have toiled. It was 
 not, however, to be, and I have arrived at a time of life 
 when I have little hope that the advance of science will 
 have solved the questions I would pose to it, while I still 
 have the energy to undertake such a work as I have in- 
 dicated. In these circumstances I have no wish to add yet 
 one more to those primers on trout-fly dressing, accepted 
 
xii FOREWORD 
 
 by a too credulous public as authoritative and for the 
 time being final, of which the literature of angling with 
 the fly is full. To do so would be but to add to confusion 
 already more than sufficiently confounded. 
 
 I have, however, thought it might be of service to collect 
 in book form my reflections on a number of considerations 
 leading up to an understanding of the true theory of trout- 
 fly dressing in the hope that at some not too distant date 
 some scientific angler and fly dresser of a younger genera- 
 tion may be induced to take up and solve the at present 
 unsolved problem, and to give his solution to the world, 
 not in the difficult language of science, but in such clear and 
 simple words as may be understanded of the people, and 
 thus provide a sound basis for the ascertainment of the 
 principles and considerations constituting the true theory 
 of dressing the artificial trout-fly. 
 
 For some time after the publication of " Minor Tactics of 
 the Chalk Stream," I not infrequently had occasion to regret 
 that I had not delayed publication for a year or two so that 
 I might have incorporated in that volume matter on which 
 further experience and further observation had given me 
 more light. I take this opportunity of collecting and 
 giving to the fly-fishing public in the second division of 
 this book such of the supplemental matter to which I refer 
 as I have embodied in articles in the press. 
 
 Much of my matter has already appeared in The Field, 
 The Fishing Gazette, and The Journal of the Fly-Fishers* 
 Club, to the editors of which I record my acknow- 
 ledgments. 
 
 Plates II. and III. are reproduced from exquisite coloured 
 drawings made from my handiwork by Captain S. Barbe 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 To my friend H. T. Sheringham I tender grateful 
 thanks for his encouragement and for his help in seeing this 
 work through the press. 
 
 G. E. M. SKUES. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 MM 
 FOREWORD ------- ix 
 
 DIVISION I 
 PART I 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. CONSIDERATIONS OF MOTIVE I 
 
 II. THE WHY - . - - - - - -3 
 
 III. FREEWILL AND PREDESTINATION ... 5 
 
 PART II 
 
 I. THE SENSE OF TASTE ------ 8 
 
 II. THE SENSE OF SMELL 
 
 9 
 
 PART III 
 
 The Vision of Trout 
 
 i. a preliminary cast - - - - - - 10 
 
 ii. the sense of form and definition - - 13 
 
 iii. the invisibility of hooks - vj 
 
 iv. the sense of position - - - - - l8 
 
 v. a problem for the optician - - - 20 
 
 vi. the sense of number - - - - "23 
 
 vii. the sense of colour - - - - 24 
 
 viii. the sense of size - - - - - 31 
 
 IX. TONE --------32 
 
 X. IN DUSK AND DARK - - - - - "34 
 
 XI. LOOKING UPWARD - - - - - 36 
 
 XII. LOOKING UPWARD IN DUSK AND DARK - - * 43 
 
 PART IV 
 How 
 
 I. THE MOUTH OF A TROUT - - - - 48 
 
 II. A SPECULATION IN BUBBLES - - - - 50 
 
 III. THE RISE - - - - - - -51 
 
 IV. ASSORTED RISES - - - - - "59 
 V. FAUSSE MONTEE - - - - - - 65 
 
 VI. THE MOMENT - - - - - - -67 
 
 xiii 
 
xiv CONTENTS 
 
 PART V 
 What 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. FLIES AS FOOD ------ 69 
 
 II. FLY DRESSING AS AN ART - - - - "75 
 
 III. IMITATION, REPRESENTATION, SUGGESTION - - - 77 
 
 IV. STYLES OF FLY DRESSING - - - - "79 
 V. KICK --------82 
 
 VI. EX MORTUA MANU - - - - - -83 
 
 PART VI 
 
 BAFFLEMENT --------89 
 
 DIVISION II 
 SOME FURTHER MINOR TACTICAL STUDIES 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. SOME PROBLEMS - - - - - - 90 
 
 THE HARE'S-EAR PUZZLE - - - - "9° 
 
 UPSTREAM WIND - - - - 91 
 
 A CURIOUS CONTRAST - - - - - 96 
 
 THE RED QUILL - - - - - . - IOO 
 
 THE ENTRANCE OUT - - - - 102 
 
 THE ALDER AND CANON K. - - - • IO4 
 
 THE WILLOW-FLY ----- 107 
 
 II. SOME FLY-DRESSING EXAMPLES - 108 
 
 IRON BLUE ------ 108 
 
 A GOOD SMALL OLIVE - - - - - 10 9 
 
 JULY DUN - - - - - - 110 
 
 LITTLE RED SEDGE - - - - - 113 
 
 PHEASANT TAIL - - - - - -1 15 
 
 RUSTY SPINNER - - - - - 117 
 
 THE POPE AND THE TAILERS - - - - Il8 
 
 III. SOME MORE FLY DRESSING — PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE - 121 
 
 THEORIES OF WET-FLY DRESSING OF TROUT FLIES - 121 
 
 THE DRESSING OF NYMPHS - - - - 125 
 
 THE PURPOSES OF A HACKLE - - - - 129 
 
 THE SPADE FEATHER - - - - - I32 
 
 BUZZ ------- 133 
 
 A GOOD ENTRY ------ 134 
 
 QUALITY IN FLY-DRESSING MATERIALS - - "135 
 
CONTENTS xv 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 IV. SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS ----- 138 
 
 WHAT MADE THE DRY FLY POSSIBLE - - - I38 
 
 THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE WET FLY - - I39 
 
 THE CULTIVATION OF SHYNESS - - - - 149 
 
 SEMI-SUBMERGED, ETC. ----- 154 
 
 WIND AND THE EVENING RISE - - - - 157 
 
 ON THE ACCURACY OF AUTHORITIES - - - 161 
 
 DRIFTWEED AND BAD ADVICE - - - - 162 
 
 V. B.W.O. -------- 166 
 
 B.W.O. - - l66 
 
 VI. TACTICAL ------- 172 
 
 GLIMPSES OF THE MOON - - - - 172 
 
 SIDE STRAIN ------ 176 
 
 OF POCKET PICKING ----- 180 
 
 OF THE WAYS OF BRER FOX - - - - l8l 
 
 PICKING IT OFF: A VERY MINOR TACTIC - - - 183 
 
 ARGILLACEOUS ------ 184 
 
 OF GLYCERINE ------ 186 
 
 THE SWITCH ------ 188 
 
 VII. PSYCHOLOGICAL ------ 192 
 
 HANDS ------- 192 
 
 ACCURACY AND DELICACY - I94 
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF THE INADEQUATE - - - 196 
 
 VIII. FRANKLY IMMORAL ------ 201 
 
 MAKESHIFT ------ 201 
 
 IX. EPISODICAL ------- 205 
 
 ESTABLISHED PRINCIPLES AND TROUT - - - 205 
 
 AN ABNORMAL DAY ----- 208 
 
 ONE OF LIFE'S LITTLE CAST IRONIES - 2IO 
 
 ANOTHER OF LIFE'S LITTLE CAST IRONIES - - 212 
 
 A BORROWED ROD ----- 213 
 
 A LOCAL FALL ------ 217 
 
 AT THE SECOND CULVERT - - - - 219 
 
 BOBBING REED ------ 224 
 
 SPORTING HAZARDS ON A BERKSHIRE BROOK - - 226 
 
 FOUR ------- 232 
 
 NINE TO ONE ------ 237 
 
 A TRAVELLING COMPANION - 242 
 
 THE FOLLOWING DAY ----- 246 
 
 MY STICKING-PLASTER TROUT - - - - 252 
 
 X. DOGGEREL FROM THE CLUB JOURNAL _ _ - 255 
 
 LITTLE BROWN WINK ----- 255 
 
 A SEQUEL - - - - - - - 257 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT — AMADOU ----- 260 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PLATE FACING I AGE 
 
 I. THE BLUE DUN - Frontispiece 
 
 AS RENDERED IN DIFFERENT SYSTEMS 
 
 II. Method of Dressing Nymphs - 124 
 III. Another Method of Dressing Nymphs - 128 
 
 xvi 
 
THE WAY OF A TROUT 
 WITH A FLY 
 
 DIVISION I 
 PART I 
 
 I 
 
 CONSIDERATIONS OF MOTIVE 
 
 One frequently sees it maintained in books and in articles 
 in the press that it is impossible to say why trout come 
 on to the rise. With all possible respect for the distin- 
 guished authors of those books and articles, I venture to 
 disagree. Trout come on to the rise for two reasons in 
 combination — (i) because they are hungry, and (2) because 
 there is food. It is no answer to say that frequently fly is in 
 quantity on the water and is neglected. That is quite true, 
 and yet it is consistent with the trout not being hungry — 
 being perhaps gorged — or being busy with some preferable 
 diet under water. It is clear that the trout do not rise 
 without something to rise at, that when they come on 
 to the rise they do so with remarkable unanimity, that 
 they leave off with a unanimity almost as remarkable, that 
 when fly food is scarce they do not rise as freely as when it is 
 plentiful. And when it is plentiful and they are not rising 
 it is not too great an assumption to suggest that it is because 
 they are not hungry. It is probably within the experience 
 of most chalk-stream anglers that fleets of upwinged duns 
 sail down neglected, with only a trout rising fitfully here 
 and there among them, and that that trout here and there 
 is singularly amenable to the attraction of an iron-blue dun - 
 
2 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 That only means that trout have a preference for one food 
 over another and are at times so gorged as to be dainty. 
 After a long course of one insect they are apt to prefer 
 another. In liking a change of diet they do not differ greatly 
 from ourselves. That diet may be sought on the surface, in 
 mid-water, in the weeds, or on the bottom. It is an entire 
 mistake to assume that the trout is only feeding during the 
 rise. It is indeed probable that there are few hours of the 
 day when he is not feeding on something — mainly down 
 below. And if his subaqueous supplies be plentiful and 
 filling it would easily account for his not being excited by 
 a plentiful exhibition of surface food. Indeed, the examples 
 of dour rivers like the lower and middle Kennet and the 
 Middlesex Colne prove that there are cases where the supply 
 of bottom food is so large as to keep the trout down below 
 in the absence of the rare attraction of the May fly or the 
 large red sedge, and at times the grannom. The Kennet 
 at any rate breeds large quantities of duns. The fact that 
 the upper Kennet is less dour only proves that the supply 
 of bottom food is less satisfying. But it is still more satisfy- 
 ing than that of such rivers as the Itchen and the Test and 
 free-rising streams of that class. And there are all degrees 
 of stream in between these two ends of the scale. There is, 
 therefore, no real mystery about the question why trout rise 
 to the fly. The only real problem is why at times, when 
 everything appears in favour of their doing so, they do not. 
 It may, however, be assumed that there is a common-sense 
 reason for it. In nature nothing happens without a reason. 
 The difficulty for the angler is merely that the reason is 
 hidden some way beneath the surface. There may be 
 occasions when trout take the fly for sport or high spirits, 
 jealousy, or curiosity, or some by-motive; but on these 
 occasions it may be taken for granted that the temptation 
 is scarce and that hunger is in abeyance. 
 
THE WHY 
 
 II 
 
 THE WHY 
 
 The question why the trout takes the artificial fly is 
 another question altogether and deserves a separate 
 examination. Speaking generally, it takes the fly as food. 
 But it may be induced to take it from hunger (deceived by 
 its resemblance to the natural insect), as in the case of the 
 floating fly or the sunken nymph ; from hunger (attracted by 
 the motion of a tripped or dragging sunk fly rather than by 
 any close resemblance to a natural insect) ; from curiosity 
 (attracted by some fancy pattern, such as Wickham's Fancy, 
 or Red Tag) ; from rapacity (excited by the spectacle of 
 some big dragging fly) ; from tyranny (induced by the 
 spectacle of something seemingly alive and in distress) — or 
 there may be a combination of some or all of these motives. 
 The angler will, therefore, be wise who considers, in relation 
 to the water it is his privilege to fish, on which of these 
 motives he can most profitably place reliance, and adjusts 
 his methods accordingly. In some waters the fish are 
 generally risers. In others, where the appeal of the fly is 
 more commonly to motives other than hunger, they are 
 strikers. The American angler seldom uses the term " rise." 
 He has " a strike." And it may be believed that the term 
 is just. A book of American trout flies shows a large 
 majority of them to be fancy flies, appealing to curiosity, 
 rapacity, tyranny, or jealousy, rather than to hunger. 
 There are British waters and parts of waters where strikers are 
 more common than risers. For instance, in a slow, almost 
 still, mill-head the trout, moving about on the bottom 
 or at the surface in search of food, will (unless smutting) 
 with difficulty be tempted to take a floating fly, however 
 good an imitation it be of a natural insect, but will without 
 
4 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 difficulty be lured to slash at a dragging fly, the resemblance 
 of which to a natural insect is not marked. In such a place 
 the angler has often the choice between not catching the fish 
 and applying the appropriate method of the dragging fly. I 
 do not approve of the dragging fly on the open chalk stream, 
 but in the case of such a mill-head I should not hesitate to 
 use it, though confessedly it is, as a method, far less inter- 
 esting than is the taking of the trout with the genuine imita- 
 tion or representation or suggestion of the natural fly. 
 
 Why does the trout take the natural fly ? Undoubtedly, 
 as the contents of his stomach prove, as food. Why does 
 he take the artificial fly ? In my opinion, in the vast 
 majority of cases, because he supposes it to be his food. 
 On occasion the motive may be curiosity, jealousy, 
 pugnacity, or sheer excess of high spirits. But if I did 
 not believe that the trout took the artificial fly not only as 
 food but as food of the kind on which he is feeding, the 
 real interest of trout fishing would be gone, so far as I am 
 concerned. That is the reason why, for me, trout fishing 
 on chalk streams transcends in interest any other kind of 
 trout fishing. For on streams where the fly is compara- 
 tively scarce trout are more apt to take any kind of insect 
 that may be on the menu, and are to be taken freely on 
 patterns which do not represent the fly on the water. 
 But chalk streams are rich in insect food. The duns 
 come out in droves, and the fish show a discriminating 
 determination to take only one pattern at a time, which 
 convinces me that they mean to have nothing which does 
 not satisfy them as being that on which they are feeding. 
 Even on chalk streams there are occasions when there are 
 exceptions to this rule, but in my experience, stretching 
 over thirty-five years, these occasions are few. 
 
FREEWILL AND PREDESTINATION 
 
 III 
 FREEWILL AND PREDESTINATION 
 
 A year or two before the war a learned German Professor, 
 Herr Ludwig Edinger, contributed to the Field an article 
 entitled, " Fish and Freewill," in which he sought to prove 
 that it was by an involuntary reflex action that the trout 
 took the fly. " The trout," said he in effect, " is a creature 
 of very little brain." In the higher vertebrates a special 
 portion of the brain — the cortex of the cerebral hemisphere 
 — has alone the function of combining different sensations 
 and of drawing conclusions from them. If deprived of 
 their cortex they exercise no choice, and have no power 
 of deliberation, but react in a definite way to each definite 
 change in their surroundings. " A study of the anatomical 
 and microscopical structure " — I quote his exact words — 
 " of the brain of fish shows that there is no structure 
 corresponding to the cortex in the more highly developed 
 forms." Hence he declared that fish have no power of 
 combining their sensations, and that they cannot exercise 
 choice. So that the action of the trout in taking the fly 
 is purely reflex, depending on two factors — viz., upon the 
 stimulus being adequate and upon the degree of excitability 
 of the nerve centres — and the Professor went on to develop 
 his argument in some detail. 
 
 The fly so cunningly cast by the Professor evoked 
 several rises. More than one angler rushed into print 
 with facts confirmatory of the Professor's theory. 
 
 I suspect Professor Ludwig Edinger of being a humorist 
 of the most cynical and heartless type. Who that was 
 not could so wrap up a platitude in learned language 
 and spring it upon innocent anglers in such a way as to 
 lead them to think that they were trembling on the verge 
 
6 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 of a portentous discovery which should knock their dearly 
 loved art into the proverbial cocked-hat ? " Has a fish no 
 option when it takes a fly ?" " None," says he, " when 
 the temptation is irresistible." Only he does not put 
 it in that nice plain way. He envelops his proposition 
 in a cloud of cortices and reflexes and other fearful wild- 
 fowl ; and scared readers rush into print with their evidence, 
 confirmatory or negative. The Professor neatly brought 
 down his game, and must have chuckled in his sleeve. 
 I suggest to him that his next quarry be a theological 
 Congress to whom he might propound similar riddles on 
 the fall of man — and was Eve compelled to eat the apple, 
 and what was the nature of the reflex of which Delilah 
 was the victim which compelled her to keep Samson's 
 hair cut ? And were Eve and Delilah respectively sans 
 cortex, or were there only rudimentary cortices in their 
 skulls ? 
 
 But be reassured. Professor Ludwig Edinger is quite 
 right. The trout has no option when he takes the fly, 
 and it doesn't matter in the least to the art of angling. 
 The art is to present the lure so that it shall be an 
 irresistible temptation. If it isn't so, in the circumstances 
 the trout won't take it. Why is the artificial fly irre- 
 sistible when he takes it ? Because he thinks it is a natural 
 fly and good to eat, or else because it excites his curiosity 
 or bullying propensities. Then the reflex acts. If it 
 doesn't look to him like a natural fly and good to eat, or 
 if it doesn't excite his curiosity or bullying propensities, 
 the reflex does not act, because the stimulus is not there. 
 " That's all there is to it," as they say in the States. So 
 the angler is still faced with the eternal problem, how to 
 provide the stimulus which excites the reflex action, and how 
 to place it so as to excite that action. It is just as difficult 
 to do these things since Professor Edinger flung his epoch- 
 
FREEWILL AND PREDESTINATION 7 
 
 making discovery before an astonished world, and it will 
 probably go on being difficult just so long as trout are 
 trout. The trout, being a slow-witted person and so 
 fashioned by a merciful Providence, is apt to look twice 
 at a solitary specimen of any kind of insect before attacking 
 it. But, given a sufficient supply, he awakes in time to 
 the notion that there is game afoot, and it is probably 
 just the same if the artificial fly be tendered him again 
 and again without a mistake. He may begin to suspect 
 a hatch, and may irresistibly be led to respond to the 
 stimulus. Fortunately there are other stimuli to which 
 he responds with equal inevitability — funk, for instance. 
 So that the fearful may take heart of grace; and may even 
 suspect that, when the learned Professor had had his laugh 
 out at the readiness with which the anglers' reflexes 
 responded to his stimuli, and had settled whether there 
 were any or only rudimentary cortices to their brains, 
 things went on just as they were before, and that they will 
 so continue. 
 
 It doesn't matter a bit in the world whether the trout 
 reasons that the artificial fly is unsatisfactory or whether 
 his sensations suggest to him that it is not a fly. In 
 either case the angler won't get him that chuck. It does 
 not matter whether his perceptions or his reason suggests 
 to him that that is a fly and good to eat. Perceptions 
 which lead to logical conclusions are as near a form of 
 reason as is good for the angler, even if the premisses or 
 one of them — the fly, to wit — be a wrong 'un. 
 
PART II 
 
 THE SENSE OF TASTE 
 
 That trout have some sense of taste can, I think, hardly 
 be doubted. The excitement with which they come on to 
 a rise of iron-blues must indicate that the fly or nymph 
 gives them some special satisfaction. Their greedy devo- 
 tion to the black gnat, too, and, on occasion, the eagerness 
 with which they take willow fly and alder are evidence of 
 the same kind. They take the artificial fly as food, but are 
 extremely quick to reject it from their mouths, and that is 
 why quick striking is necessary. Probably they have more 
 sense of taste than have chub. I recall casting an artificial 
 Alder to a chub which lay in a still little pool among lily pads. 
 As the fly lit the fish turned and lay at right angles to its 
 former position. I did not strike, as I thought the fish had 
 missed the fly, but I waited some couple of minutes to let 
 the fly and gut sink well below the fish before I attempted 
 to retrieve my cast. But when I did so I found to my 
 astonishment that the fish was hooked. It must have 
 sucked in the fly as it turned, and the fly must have been 
 in its mouth a couple of minutes before my attempt to 
 retrieve it pulled in the barb. If the fish had any ap- 
 preciable sense of taste it would have ejected the bunch of 
 feather and herl immediately. A trout would certainly 
 have done so. 
 
 8 
 
THE SENSE OF SMELL 9 
 
 II 
 
 THE SENSE OF SMELL 
 
 It is equally certain that trout have some sense of smell. 
 They can find their way by it to a place baited with worms 
 even in the thickest water; and in thick water they would 
 probably starve but for the sense of smell. But it may well 
 be doubted whether they place any reliance on it when 
 taking the fly, natural or artificial. Here, one must infer, 
 they are guided entirely by sight. If they relied on smell 
 the paraffin anointment of the artificial dry fly would hardly 
 fail to put them off; and the absence of an insect smell in 
 the case of a wet fly might be expected to warn them to be 
 careful. Insects have, many of them, quite a strong scent. 
 A box of stone-fly creeper is very distinctly odorous. 
 
 It is, moreover, well known that a gentle or a caddis worm 
 on the hook of a fly often proves irresistible to a trout, and 
 the fact is made use of by unscrupulous anglers. But here 
 the fish is taking the savoury gentle or caddis worm and not 
 the fly, and it is still true that in taking the fly he depends 
 so much more on vision than on any other sense that for 
 the purposes of fly fishing smell and taste may be disre- 
 garded. But the vision of the trout, in its nature and pecu- 
 liarities, deserves a closer study than it has ever, so far 
 as I know, received. 
 
PART III 
 
 THE VISION OF TROUT 
 
 I 
 A PRELIMINARY CAST 
 
 In a well-known Greek myth, Semele, one of Jove's many 
 mistresses, is presented as having persuaded her lover to 
 reveal himself to her in his Olympian majesty, and as having 
 been burned to a cinder in the conflagration ; — the moral of 
 this being that man is not intended to see things as they are, 
 but only in such form and to such extent as is good for him. 
 This is, I believe, in full accord with the views of modern 
 science, which holds that man sees nothing absolutely as it is, 
 but only relatively and as is necessary for the purposes of 
 his being. Even so his perception of things seen is not the 
 sole result of the image on the retina, but is a subjective 
 effect produced upon the mind by the combination of the 
 image and the results of experience gained through the sense 
 of touch and possibly other senses connecting and co- 
 ordinating the image thrown upon the retina. A baby, it is 
 supposed, sees everything flat at first. He has to feel his way 
 through his sense of touch to a sense of distance and per- 
 spective. Man's eye therefore is not in the absolute sense a 
 perfect organ, but only relatively perfect for the purposes 
 of the needs and nature of man. 
 
 I do not think that, if this proposition be true of man, 
 it can be any less true of fish, and, in considering the way of 
 
 10 
 
THE VISION OF TROUT n 
 
 a trout with a fly, whether natural or artificial, it may be 
 worth while to spend a little time in an endeavour to see 
 what can be deduced from known facts about the nature 
 and characteristics of the eyesight of the trout. 
 
 The nature and the needs of trout differ greatly from 
 those of man, and it need not therefore surprise us if 
 examination should lead us eventually to the conclusion 
 that his perception by eyesight differs materially from that 
 of man. Indeed, I think it would be remarkable if, living 
 in a different medium that is subject to certain optical laws 
 from which the air is free, and having different needs and 
 modes of being from man, the trout were to see things in 
 all respects as man sees them — even after making all 
 allowance for the correcting and co-ordinating effects of 
 tactile experience. 
 
 To begin with, while man's eyes are placed in front of 
 his head and operate together so that his vision is stereo- 
 scopic, the trout's eyes are on the sides of his head, slanting 
 slightly forward and operating separately, so that it may be 
 inferred that in most cases his vision of an object is mon- 
 ocular. It may be that in the act of taking a fly, whether on 
 the surface or below it, both e^es may be trained forward 
 upon the object, or, alternatively, that one eye only may be 
 on the object and the other attending to business in another 
 direction. 
 
 Then, though the vision of a trout is astonishingly quick, 
 enabling him as it does to pick out and capture minute living 
 objects, often in rapid and turbulent streams, it does not 
 seem to be greatly concerned with a sense of form or detail. 
 Otherwise it is extremely difficult to conceive how he can 
 take a hackled fly, such, for instance, as the Straddlebug May 
 fly, with its long straggling fibres of summer duck, in cir- 
 cumstances which can leave no doubt in any unprejudiced 
 mind that he takes it for May fly or a hatching nymph. In 
 
12 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 the case of smaller soft-hackled patterns the case is only a 
 shade less wonderful, and even in the cases where the imita- 
 tion or representation of the natural fly is most lifelike, it 
 cannot be suggested that the likeness is so precise that it 
 could for a moment deceive the eyesight of man. 
 
 In the matter of the trout's colour perception there has 
 been much divergence of opinion among anglers. Some 
 have gone so far as to suggest that the trout is colour-blind. 
 Some say he perceives tone only and not colour. Others 
 would have you believe that he sees colour precisely as does 
 man. I am not of the school which would class the trout 
 as colour-blind. I am assured by a man of science who has 
 studied the subject that in the retina of the trout, the seat 
 of colour vision, no differences in quality from that of man 
 are to be found. The same elements are to be found in 
 human beings and in the trout. These are, of course, 
 structural differences. The medium, water, in which the 
 trout lives renders a spherical lens behind a flat cornea 
 necessary. The method of adjustment of focus differs from 
 that of man, the eye of the fish being accommodated for near 
 vision, and the entire retina of the trout's eye appears to be 
 sensitive, instead of merely one spot. But, allowing for 
 these differences of mechanism, there is no obvious or 
 apparent essential difference. And I am asked to infer from 
 this that trout see colour precisely as do men. It may be 
 so. I do not know. But I would ask whether an examina- 
 tion of the retina of a man who is wholly or partially colour- 
 blind shows any differences from the retina of a man of 
 entirely normal vision. If no differences are shown, why 
 may not the trout, notwithstanding his similar retina, be 
 partially colour-blind without the fact being betrayed by his 
 retina ? The lines of the spectrum are numerous, and I 
 would ask, is it not conceivable that the trout may have a 
 faculty of perceiving some to which man is insensitive and 
 
THE SENSE OF FORM 13 
 
 even some beyond the range of colour visible to man at 
 either or both ends of the spectrum ? I do not know, but 
 Nature is so marvellously various and so fertile in expedient 
 that I should hesitate to call it impossible that it should be 
 so. The subject is one which will bear a good deal more 
 thinking over and investigation than it has hitherto received, 
 and I propose to examine it at more length at a later stage. 
 
 II 
 
 THE SENSE OF FORM AND DEFINITION 
 
 The trout is credited on authority with being the keenest- 
 eyed of animals, and doubtless most of us have too frequently 
 found him keener of sight than we have cared about. Yet 
 the nature and limitations of that keenness are well worth 
 examining if we are to get a working grip of the principle 
 which should underlie the art of trout-fly dressing. In 
 examining the question of the possibility of successfully 
 using imitations of larvae or nymphs for trout fishing, 
 Mr. F. M. Half or d, after supposing that the angler has 
 turned out a fairly good imitation of the nymph, and tries 
 it at a time when the fish are bulging incessantly at natural 
 larvae, says: 
 
 " Alas ! how woefully is he desillusione. The fish will 
 not look at this, although it is an admirable representation, 
 both in colour and shape, of the natural insect. . . . How 
 is it to be expected that a timid, shy fish like a trout, who 
 from painful daily, and even hourly, experience is warned to 
 use the keenest of all the senses with which he has been 
 endowed by nature — viz., his sight for his protection, should 
 mistake that motionless, supine compound of dubbing, silk, 
 quill, and hackle, drifting helplessly and lifelessly like a log 
 down the stream, for the active, ever-moving larva sparkling 
 
14 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 in the sunshine, and varying in colour at every motion as 
 rays of light strike it at different angles ?" 
 
 Now, accepting for the sake of argument this presenta- 
 tion of the action and appearance of the larva as correct, we 
 have to reconcile it with the fact that this shy, keen-sighted 
 fish does not infrequently take the artificial fly of the angler, 
 floating, sunken, or semi-submerged, at times and under 
 conditions which can leave no doubt in any reasonable mind 
 that he takes it for the natural fly which it feebly pretends 
 to represent. What is the inevitable conclusion ? Un- 
 doubtedly that the eyesight of the trout, though perfectly 
 adapted for all his purposes except defence against the wiles 
 of man, is defective in some direction or directions, since 
 it permits him to make such fatal mistakes. But how can 
 we know the nature and extent of these defects in his eye- 
 sight ? There are two ways of getting at it. One is by 
 microscopic examination of the trout's eye by a skilled 
 oculist or optician — a method beyond me; the other is by 
 reasoning from the innumerable data which a prolonged 
 experience of trout-fly fishing gives to every observant 
 angler. 
 
 The first point to which I invite attention is that a trout 
 is a predaceous animal, and his eye may be expected to 
 evince the peculiarities of the eyes of other predaceous 
 animals whose business it is to catch their prey in motion. 
 One naturally turns to the cat for a familiar example. If 
 anyone has watched a cat at play, he may guess to what I 
 am leading up. For a moving object her sight is of amazing 
 quickness, but she is far more stupid than the dog at finding 
 a stationary object, unless guided by the sense of smell. Is 
 this true of the trout ? Let us follow the inquiry further. 
 The cat not only sees things in motion, it sees them 
 moving in the dark. The trout also has a faculty for seeing 
 — at any rate in his own element — in the dark, and even 
 
THE SENSE OF FORM 15 
 
 distinguishes colour well— quite well enough to enable 
 him to take one artificial fly rather than another. Most 
 anglers who have fished wet-fly streams in the late dusk 
 with a team of flies could quote occasions when one fly has 
 been taken by every fish to the exclusion of a choice of other 
 patterns, and that fly not necessarily either the lightest or 
 the darkest. 
 
 Let us grant, then, that the trout's sight is quick; let us 
 concede him a strong sense of colour or texture or both; 
 but is that sight clear ? Has the trout even a rudimentary 
 sense of form ? There are grounds for doubting it. I am 
 going to get into hot water with the apostles of the " precise 
 imitation " school, but I am not going to dogmatize, but 
 to call attention to facts. 
 
 If we take the most exquisitely dressed Olive Quill or 
 Iron-blue dun and compare them with their prototypes in 
 nature, can we honestly say that the resemblance of form 
 or attitude is marked ? We know it is not. We are 
 satisfied if in colour and size the imitation is approximate. 
 If the fly be tied with rolled wings reversed, it is frequently 
 as good a killer as, or even better than, the ordinary pattern. 
 Yet the fly with dense, stiff wings thrown forward is really 
 not, in shape at any rate, a striking likeness of the natural 
 insect, with its wings sloping just the other way. A good 
 instance of this is the Mole Fly — a sedge ; instead of having 
 its wings laid back over the body, it presents them flung 
 forward in the opposite direction. Yet it is indubitably 
 a successful pattern. Then, does the trout pay much 
 attention to the fact that the floating fly of commerce is 
 generally able to give the centipede fifty legs and a beating ? 
 There are times when he does not. Does he even mind 
 where the legs occur in the anatomy (if one may be pardoned 
 the term) of the artificial fly ? They may, as in the Wick- 
 ham or any of the sedges, be in spirals all down the body, 
 
16 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 but what does he care ? Take the Dotterel dun. This 
 is a hackled imitation of a light yellow-legged dun. The 
 dotterel hackle is a brownish dun feather with yellow 
 tips to the points of the fibres. The dun colour represents 
 the wings, the yellow tips the legs. But does the trout 
 resent being offered a fly with yellow legs at the tips of 
 his wings, and these wings spread mopwise all round his 
 body ? If he does resent it, the popularity — the well- 
 deserved popularity — of the Dotterel dun is hard to account 
 for. Making every allowance for some disarrangement of 
 toilet in a natural fly which has become submerged or 
 caught by the current, can we say that it ever has its 
 wings starred all round its head or shoulders in a pal- 
 pitating mop ? Then the honey-dun hen hackle. This is 
 the same thing again. And we know that the honey-dun 
 hen feathers are among the trout- fly dresser's most cherished 
 treasures. 
 
 Let us turn to the Iron-blue dun. The natural insect has 
 lead-coloured wings and red feet, and the artificial may 
 be dressed either winged or hackled. If hackled, a dark 
 blue dun feather with copper-red points is an admirable 
 feather to use. But the trout does not mind a bit that 
 your Iron-blue dun has a mop of blue wing all round its 
 head, with a little red foot at the end of each fibre. It 
 is a commonplace of fly dressing that, in translating a 
 winged pattern into its hackled correlative, you select a 
 hackle combining as far as possible the colour of wings 
 and legs, and, so long as you keep the colours, their relative 
 position is of little consequence. As an instance, let me 
 quote the case of the Lead- winged (i.e., starling- winged) 
 Coachman and the Little Chap. Each has a peacock herl 
 body. The dun of the starling wings in the Coachman is 
 reproduced by the dun centre of the hackle of the Little 
 Chap, and the red hackle of the Coachman by the red points 
 
THE INVISIBILITY OF HOOKS 17 
 
 of the hackle of the Little Chap. But if they be dressed on 
 the same size of hook, when one will kill, as a general 
 proposition the other will kill. If the artificial fly lay on 
 quite still water it may be doubted whether it would often 
 be taken ; but in general the movement of the stream imparts 
 an appearance of motion to the fly, and the trout, catching 
 a general impression of correct size and colouring, absorbs 
 it, hook and all, without too nearly considering the things 
 that belong to his peace. Taking it by and large, the fact is 
 indisputable that the shabbiest, roughest, most dilapidated, 
 most broken-winged fly is as likely to kill as the newest 
 and freshest of the fly- tier's confections — provided size and 
 colour be right. What is " right " must be the subject of 
 further discussion. Meanwhile, I think I have established 
 this, that in appreciation of form and proportion and detail 
 the sight sense of the trout is defective. 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE INVISIBILITY OF HOOKS 
 
 But there is another matter in which his eyesight some- 
 times serves him ill. Dr. Watts — I think it was that 
 great and good man — represented a wise old mother trout 
 assuring her too ardent offspring that " that horrid fly is 
 meant to hide the sharpness of the hook." It may be so, 
 but performance, alas ! often falls far short of intention, 
 and the instances are few in which the horrid fly does 
 anything of the sort. Indeed, a very competent school of 
 Scottish fly dressers is all for minimum of wing and body, 
 and the rankest exposure of the hook which is possible, 
 so that the fly is the merest sketch, and the hook is the 
 prominent thing. Therefore, in speculating on the vision 
 of the trout, we have to make our account with the fact 
 
 3 
 
18 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 that, whether the hook be blued or brown, it does not deter 
 trout from frequently seeking to make a meal of the arti- 
 ficial fly. The trout, therefore, must either fail to see the 
 hook, or, seeing it, must ignore it. If he sees it and realizes 
 that it is an unnatural appendage to the artificial fly, he 
 could hardly ignore it. He must therefore either take it for a 
 natural appendage, or for some casual, but quite irrelevant, 
 attachment, or be so obsessed by his intentness on his 
 food as to see only what he wants to see — namely, that 
 combination of colour which seems to him to correspond 
 with the natural insect in favour for the moment. It is 
 impossible to say that he does not take the hook for some 
 casual attachment, for all sorts of odd things float down 
 the water with the natural fly. Yet he will not as a rule 
 take a fly to which a weed attaches. The trout are familiar 
 with those nasty little thin leeches which attack their own 
 heads and bodies. Whether these ever attack floating flies 
 I could not say, but I never saw or heard of their doing 
 so. The balance of probability, I think, leans to the 
 theory that the trout is so obsessed by the pressure of 
 appetite that he only sees what he wants to see — his 
 supposed insect prey — and ignores the hook as an irrelevant 
 detail,* all of which goes to prove that the wily trout of 
 the poets and journalists is — may Providence be devoutly 
 thanked for it — really rather a stupid person. 
 
 IV 
 
 THE SENSE OF POSITION 
 
 If it be true, as has been suggested, that the trout is so 
 obsessed by the pressure of appetite that he is when feeding 
 lost to the sense of all things connected with his food except 
 
 * This is in keeping with his being satisfied if his colour sense be 
 satisfied and with his lack of a clear sense of form. 
 
THE SENSE OF POSITION 19 
 
 colour and size, that would tend to account for a pheno- 
 menon which anglers at large accept with a philosophy 
 born for the most part of ignorance, but which is a dis- 
 tressing problem to anglers of a more entomologically 
 learned and conscientious type. The phenomenon is his 
 willingness to take the winged fly under water, where 
 winged flies are comparatively seldom found. An ultra- 
 conscientious angler might go further and be pained by his 
 willingness to take nymphs floating high and dry above 
 the surface, a position in which nymphs are not to be found 
 at all in nature. But at this point the ultra-conscientious 
 angler usually stops, and, obsessed by the appetite for 
 catching his trout, sees only what he wishes to see, and 
 persuades himself that the bright cock's hackles on which 
 the artificial nymph body is held high and dry above the 
 water really represent the much denser and duller-hued 
 wings of the natural dun, it being generally known that 
 the dun not infrequently stands on the points of its wings 
 on the water. 
 
 It is a fact which no arguing can get over that the trout, 
 whether of chalk stream or rough river, will, so frequently 
 as to take the case out of the exceptional, take a winged 
 fly wet and a hackle fly dry, as well as a winged fly dry 
 and a hackle fly wet. In particular, when bulging, a 
 trout will be so set on his subaqueous meal that he becomes 
 almost unconscious of what is going on on the surface 
 (and is, therefore, much less readily put down than a trout 
 which is taking in the hatched fly), and accepts with almost 
 equal readiness the natural nymphs and the angler's 
 winged Greenwell's Glory, provided the colours appeal to 
 him as right. He seems able to obliterate from the field 
 of vision all irrelevancies such as hooks and wings, and to 
 concentrate on the olive of the body. 
 
 There is less difficulty in accounting for his taking a 
 
20 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 hackle fly on the surface. If it represents a spinner, the 
 effect may be right enough, but if it represents a dun, 
 either hatched or in the nymphal stage, then it is possible 
 that the bright cock's hackles surrounding it are the 
 " trailing clouds of glory " with which it comes, and they 
 may lead to an early closing about it of the shades of 
 the prison-house which every trout carries with him, and 
 then all is well with the angler. 
 
 If I were really spiteful, I might suggest that many of 
 the winged floating patterns are only taken because of their 
 resemblance to nymphs, the wings being ignored. And, 
 truly, I could elaborate quite a pretty argument on the 
 subject, with instances in point. 
 
 But be all that as it may, it would seem that the vision 
 of the trout is defective in not keeping him alive to the 
 incongruity of the winged fly under water and the hackled 
 nymph on the surface. The only alternative explanation 
 is that his observation, his memory, and his power of 
 reasoning from the known to the unknown are much to 
 seek. 
 
 V 
 
 A PROBLEM FOR THE OPTICIAN 
 
 I was casting a fly one sunny July day upon a shallow 
 Berkshire brook, which, cutting its way through a boggy 
 surface soil, babbled gaily, seldom more than eighteen inches 
 deep, over a hard-core bed of chalk and gravel. The brook 
 swarmed with trout, few apparently under the half-pound, 
 and very few over the pound; and when first I arrived 
 at the water-side the only fish taking were a few casual 
 feeders, which picked up a miscellaneous hors d'ceuvres 
 under the bushes which lined a part of one bank where 
 the stream, being deeper, was also slower. But as I moved 
 
A PROBLEM FOR THE OPTICIAN 21 
 
 upstream, at every bend I came upon a new group of 
 trout, which darted up stream and down in a great state 
 of agitation, long before I could come within casting 
 distance of them. After I had walked up three or four 
 of these groups, and could see that the character of the 
 stream for some distance ahead differed in no material wise 
 from that part under my elbow, I returned to my starting- 
 point and sat down on a stile to give the trout time to 
 settle. In less than half an hour dimples here and there 
 in the runs between the cress-beds a little way up en- 
 couraged me to try again. What a change ! Fish, that 
 half an hour before had scuttled desperately while I was 
 yet a long way off, took no notice of me now, went on 
 feeding gaily, and did not disdain my Olive Quill on those 
 occasions when it was put to them right. To cut a long 
 story short, I landed during the daytime twelve brace, 
 retaining two over the pound limit; and going out again 
 in the evening I landed other five brace, of which one was 
 over the pound, and was retained. 
 
 Next day was similar in conditions, and I fished for a 
 couple of hours in the morning, catching five brace, of which 
 one was one and a quarter pounds, one a safe pound, and 
 the rest went back. All the while that the fish were 
 feeding they took no notice of me — comparatively speaking, 
 of course — until they were hooked, when they made a 
 fierce resistance. When they were not feeding they were 
 wild as hawks, and scuttled over the shallows in droves 
 while I was yet a great way off. Nothing remarkable in 
 all this, of course — nothing that is not within the experi- 
 ence of all anglers for trout. The experience, I admit, is 
 quite commonplace. It is only because of a train of 
 thought to which it gave rise that I mention it, and mention 
 it in detail. Were the trout so infatuated with their food 
 that they did not care about me during the rise, or was it 
 
22 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 that, with their eyes concentrated on the nymphs and 
 duns coming down to them, they could not see me without 
 a special effort, or without some special cause attracting 
 attention ? If one supposed that for reasons of self- 
 protection, or for some other sound natural cause, the eye 
 of the trout had a wide range of focus, so that he could see — 
 even behind him — to quite a distance out of water when 
 not intent on his food, and that when food was toward 
 that focus shortened to a few — perhaps a very few — inches 
 to deal with the business in hand, would not that explain 
 his comparative unconsciousness of the angler's presence 
 far better than the supposition that appetite was so strong 
 upon him as, without diminishing the acuteness of his 
 vision, to cast out fear ? It is worth thinking about. 
 
 The human eye focuses itself upon an object, and it sees 
 that object clearly — its immediate surroundings clearly 
 enough; but those which are not the object of attention are 
 often blurred and impressionist in outline and effect. If 
 the object of attention be near, the effect of distant objects 
 is blurred and lost. Imagine a like result in the eye of a 
 trout, and allow for a denser medium than air. While the 
 attention is focused on the food, feet or inches off, it may 
 well be that the mechanical effect on the lens of the eye is 
 to blur or even to shut out altogether comparatively long- 
 range objects, such as an angler in the rear extending forty 
 feet or forty-five feet of line in his direction. It might 
 even be that, with the focus of his eye shortened, a trout 
 becomes incapable of seeing through water on one side 
 when the light is in a particular direction, while remaining 
 quite capable of seeing distinctly what is behind him on 
 the other side. In earlier pages I have endeavoured to 
 show that the vision of the trout is defective, at any rate 
 as regards the form of the fly, while attentive to colour and 
 size. The mouth of the trout is large, and when he takes 
 
THE SENSE OF NUMBER 23 
 
 in the fly he does not, as so many artists depict him as 
 doing, snap it. He expands his gills so as to induce an 
 entering current through his open mouth, which carries 
 fly or nymph in with it. Therefore he has no need to see 
 the detail of his food very clearly in order to take it in. 
 May it not be that this defective near vision when con- 
 centrating on the fly is the correlative of the distortion of 
 the eye from its more general business of keeping a watch 
 for possible enemies ? 
 
 Whether it is so or not I am not prepared to say. I am 
 no optician; but if some angler who is an optician would 
 make a study of this subject, and could deduce from his 
 anatomy of the eye of the trout the truth of this matter, 
 he might be conferring upon anglers some knowledge worth 
 having. 
 
 VI 
 
 THE SENSE OF NUMBER 
 
 If the conclusion from my argument be accepted that 
 trout have a defective sense of form, and will often take 
 for a fly something that is either so tumbled or so differently 
 arranged from the natural insect it is supposed to represent 
 as to be very unlike it to the eye of man, the reader will 
 have no difficulty in accepting the corollary conclusion 
 that with the sense of form (and probably from the same 
 cause) the sense of number is also at fault. Countless 
 writers have poured scorn on the imitation theory, because 
 the hackle of a winged fly suggests many more legs than 
 the natural insect possesses. I suggest that the fish gets 
 only a general effect, and that, provided the excess of hackle 
 be not so pronounced as to spoil the general effect by 
 producing an appearance of clotting, it will not be fatal to 
 the fish taking the artificial fly for a natural fly. 
 
24 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 VII 
 THE SENSE OF COLOUR 
 
 I. A Query. 
 
 So many who have argued in print on the subject of the 
 colour-sense of trout have argued as if there were only two 
 possible alternatives — namely, that trout must see colour 
 as mankind see it, or else must be wholly colour-blind. 
 I venture to suggest that that attitude of mind takes too 
 little account of the wonderful variety of nature. It might 
 well prove to be the case that, without being colour-blind, 
 trout are more sensitive to some colours than to others, 
 or they might be wholly colour-blind to one primary colour 
 and keenly sensitive to others. 
 
 A person completely colour-blind sees all objects in a 
 neutral grey, the form and reflected light alone distinguishing 
 one from another. 
 
 A simple way of illustrating what I mean is to take 
 things in their simplest form. There are three primary 
 colours — violet, red, and green. All other colours are a 
 combination in varying proportions of two or more of 
 them. The simple combination of any two of them makes 
 the complementary colours. Sensations of different colour 
 are produced by rays of light of differing wave-lengths. 
 Now assume, for the sake of argument, that trout are 
 sensitive to red only, and colour-blind to violet and green. 
 Then a combined colour made up equally of violet and red 
 would look to him precisely like a combined colour made 
 up of red and green in equal proportions, for his eye would 
 only accept the wave-lengths to which it was sensitive 
 and reject the rest, thus selecting that part of the combined 
 colour to which it was sensitive, and rejecting that part 
 
THE SENSE OF COLOUR 25 
 
 to which it was blind. And any shades made up of a com- 
 bination of green and violet, in whatever proportions, 
 without any red, provided the tone were the same, would 
 look much the same to him. 
 
 Let us go a step further and imagine him confronted 
 with a combination of orange and green, making a sort of 
 dirty brown: his eye would pick out the red from the 
 combination, and would reject the violet and green; and, the 
 less red there was, the fainter the object would appear. 
 Again, if he were confronted with a combination of green 
 and pink, making another combination of a sort of brown, 
 his eye would select the red and reject the green and violet. 
 And the two quite different shades of brown would look 
 practically identical to him, provided there were the same 
 intensity of red in each. Again, if the combination were 
 violet and orange with the same amount of red in the 
 orange as in the other two combinations, his eye would 
 again select the red and reject that part in those parts of 
 the combination to which he was blind. So that this com- 
 bination would again look the same to him. In fact, his 
 only test of colour would be the extremely simple test, 
 the degree of red in it. If that were constant all colours 
 would look alike. 
 
 Yet one step further and imagine your trout sensitive 
 to red and green, but entirely blind to violet. Then any 
 combination of red and violet entirely free of green, or of 
 green and violet entirely free of red, would be judged by 
 the amount of red or green in it, as the case might 
 be. But if red and green were together in any combined 
 colour, then the fish would begin to be able to perceive 
 distinctions. 
 
 It is unnecessary to drag the reader through the further 
 combinations to make this point clear. 
 
 Now all this is extremely crude, and it is not put forward 
 
 4 
 
26 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 as suggesting an opinion that trout are blind to any one or 
 two of the primary colours. That is not the suggestion at 
 all. Nature is not so simple as that. But it is quite 
 another matter to say that, because man has a highly- 
 developed sense of colour, therefore trout, if capable of 
 colour-sense at all, must see colour as man sees it. There 
 are degrees of colour-consciousness in man, and it would 
 surely not be a great stretch of imagination to conceive 
 that trout's sensitiveness to different colours may well be 
 different from that of man. He may be more or less 
 sensitive to some colours, and relatively less or more 
 sensitive to others — possibly extremely insensitive to some; 
 and he may be sensitive to some beyond man's colour 
 scale. 
 
 If this be conceded, merely as a basis for argument, 
 it would certainly be found to result in trout seeing like- 
 nesses of colour where man sees differences, and perhaps 
 differences of colour where man sees likenesses. 
 
 In a previous chapter I have, I think, made it fairly 
 clear that trout do see likenesses where man sees differences, 
 and differences where man sees likenesses. Is it too big 
 a jump in reasoning to infer that there may be some 
 variation in degree of sensitiveness to different colours 
 between the eye of the trout and the eye of man ? 
 
 But can it be doubted that if the fly dresser knew 
 exactly the degree of the trout's sensitiveness and insensi- 
 tiveness to different colours, and also knew the combina- 
 tions of colour producing any particular shade for the 
 trout, he would have gone a very long way towards solving 
 the secrets of fatally successful trout-fly dressing ? 
 
 It is, I think, beyond dispute that trout are extremely 
 sensitive to red and are greatly attracted by it. Witness 
 the value of a Red Tag to a fly. Living as so many do among 
 surroundings of green weed with a diet of insects in so 
 
THE SENSE OF COLOUR 27 
 
 many shades of green, it seems unlikely that they are 
 insensitive to green, but there are practically no blues in 
 the trout's habitat unless you count the blue of the sky 
 seen through the circle of vision above him. And it 
 would not surprise me if it were proved that trout are 
 comparatively insensitive to blues. 
 
 It may be that Sir Herbert Maxwell's famous red and 
 blue May flies were, in fact, the one the colour of supreme 
 attraction, the other a neutral grey. 
 
 On no point is there great divergence of opinion among 
 anglers than on this of the power of the trout to distinguish 
 colour; but it is only possible to reason from one's own 
 experience, and to appeal to that of others. For the moment 
 we are dealing with the colours suggesting current daily 
 food, and setting aside the colours of lures which excite 
 tyranny, rapacity, or curiosity. These latter are usually 
 bright and stimulating, and they are rather beside the 
 point for our argument. The colours of the nymphs, duns, 
 and other insects which form the daily menu are in general 
 sober, and if trout were incapable of making fairly fine 
 distinctions of colour, it is hard to account for those 
 frequent occasions when fly after fly is tried, seemingly 
 like enough to the fly on the water, in vain, and finally 
 a pattern is found which kills fish after fish. Again, on 
 wet-fly waters, where the angler is laying a team of flies 
 across the stream, one fly out of the three or four will be 
 persistently selected by the trout, and if two or more 
 anglers are using the same pattern on diverse casts they 
 all find the same pattern selected. My own belief, for what 
 it is worth, is that where the supply of food is moderate or 
 small and the fish is hungry, his taste is apt to be far 
 more catholic than on those occasions when there is a 
 strong hatch of one or more varieties, one of which appeals 
 most strongly to the trout. There must have been days 
 
28 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH. A FLY 
 
 within the experience of most of us when the water has been 
 covered with yellow duns and small pale olives, with a 
 sprinkling of iron-blue duns among them, and all else has 
 been neglected in favour of the iron blue. Here it is true 
 that the fly is quite distinct in colouring from the others on 
 the water at the same time; but on similar occasions, when 
 the iron blue is not to the fore, the trout will as a rule not 
 be mixing their diet, but confining themselves to fly of one 
 kind, and sticking to that, and that only, and letting all 
 else go by. 
 
 So far we have been dealing with surface feeding mainly, 
 but where the trout are bulging it is not so easy to ascertain 
 what they are feeding on. It involves an autopsy — a 
 messy and uncertain business at best — for it is impossible 
 to say when and where the nymphs in the gullet were taken; 
 one can only make an approximate guess. It is true that 
 one generally finds one type of nymph predominating, but 
 one often finds odd specimens of other kinds, and it may be 
 suspected that the trout, accustomed where no rise is on 
 to forage among celery beds and other vegetation in search 
 of nymph and larva, shrimp and snail, is then much 
 more catholic in his tastes than when he is busy gathering in 
 the surface duns. If one puts down a soft muslin net 
 among celery beds just before the rise is expected one will 
 bring it up wriggling with larvae and nymphs of very 
 varying dimensions and colouring, from darkest olive to 
 something like bright dandelion and primrose. So it may 
 easily be true that the trout when nymphing may more 
 readily be induced to make a mistake than when feeding 
 steadily on the surface. There it is much more important 
 to get the right fly. And the right fly is that which 
 the trout finds to be the right colour. It does not 
 always seem the right colour to the angler, and so it 
 may fairly be questioned whether the trout sees colour 
 
THE SENSE OF COLOUR 29 
 
 just as man sees it. This is a question which deserves 
 to be pursued further, but this is not the place to 
 pursue it. 
 
 2. A Speculation. 
 
 To set about discovering in what the difference (if it exists) 
 of sensitiveness to colour in the eye of the trout and the 
 eye of man consists, is an extremely difficult matter. I do 
 not profess the anatomical or optical knowledge which 
 would enable me to probe it scientifically. I do not 
 know whether the problem is or ever will be soluble, what- 
 ever be the scientific advance of man. I hope it may be 
 possible to solve it some day, if it be for the good of fly 
 fishing as an art. In the meanwhile I may perhaps be 
 forgiven some empirical speculations in the direction of a 
 solution, some gropings after the truth. 
 
 It may, I think, be taken as a starting-point that, 
 whatever be the nature of the trout's faculties of vision, 
 they are designed to subserve his earning his living and 
 the preservation of his species. 
 
 One starts by observing that in weedy rivers trout live 
 in an environment of green; in gravelly or rocky rivers 
 they live in an environment of brown. One knows from 
 the attractiveness of the Red Tag and the Zulu that they 
 are peculiarly sensitive to red. 
 
 In their food one finds among the duns a prevalence 
 of greens and yellows; among the sedges reds, orange, 
 and brown ; in the Perlidae, or willow flies, browns ; and in 
 the alder brown and plum colour. There is not, however, 
 except very faint in the wings of duns, any great quantity 
 of blue in the food of trout, nor does it prevail in their 
 habitat, except in combination with yellow to make 
 green. I am not forgetting the iron-blue dun. That is 
 easily to be picked out as a very dark fly against the light, 
 
30 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 and not necessarily because of the blue in it. Indeed, the 
 base colour of the iron blue, as disclosed in its spinners, 
 is a shade of red as exemplified in the claret spinner and the 
 Jenny spinner. The wings of duns, standing up in the air 
 or seen spread out spent on the water, are generally very 
 colourless, and it is known that many anglers fish hackled 
 flies habitually in preference to winged flies. 
 
 It would not perhaps be the worst guess that could be 
 made if one were to hazard that blue was the colour to which 
 trout are least sensitive. 
 
 It is the colour of sky and cloud, the background against 
 which they see their surface food. 
 
 The reference to a neutral grey recalls a greenheart rod of 
 mine made by Farlow and painted heron-blue, and its extra- 
 ordinary invisibility to the trout. Again and again I have 
 held it over a trout lying under my bank, and have waved 
 it to and fro without scaring him until I showed myself, and 
 it certainly seemed as if it were of a colour to which the 
 trout was almost insensible. I remember speculating at 
 the time whether it was by reason of his scheme of colora- 
 tion that the heron was able to get within striking distance 
 of the fish. I afterwards had a split-cane Test rod built by 
 Messrs. Hardy Brothers, and I got them to colour it 
 similarly, but the varnish put a flash upon it which dis- 
 counted its invisibility, and that and the fact that the 
 colouring matter under or in the varnish added not a little 
 to the weight of the rod led to my discontinuing the use of 
 heron-blue colouring for my rods. 
 
THE SENSE OF SIZE 31 
 
 VIII 
 THE SENSE OF SIZE 
 
 " The fuller the water the larger the fly " is a good general 
 working rule, and so it follows that where, as in the chalk 
 streams, the flow is steady and constant, there is seldom 
 any occasion to increase the size of the artificial fly above 
 the normal size of the natural. And on these streams one 
 is liable to find that the presentation of a fly above the 
 normal in size is apt to be resented, and many experienced 
 anglers advise a size smaller than the natural fly rather 
 than an imitation of equal size. What, then, is the ground 
 for the use of a fly larger than the natural upon rougher 
 and less constant streams ? The only one which suggests 
 itself is that a full water (once it clears enough for the 
 fly) stimulates the fish to such high spirits and such ex- 
 tremity of hunger, that the added size of the angler's lure, 
 so far from giving rise to suspicion (as it would in more 
 normal circumstances), becomes an added attraction in its 
 promise of satisfaction of an oppressively vigorous appetite. 
 The angler therefore may be sure that he will be wise to 
 pay attention to this matter of size, as it is one of which, 
 for good or for ill, the trout takes notice. It is a curious 
 point that the wet fly may be fished a size larger than the 
 dry representing the same insect. I record this as a 
 matter of experience without being able to give, off my 
 own bat, even a guess at a reason. A very skilful and 
 observant wet-fly angler of my acquaintance says that the 
 nymph and the creeper are larger than the winged insect. 
 
 The conclusions which I venture to submit as the sum 
 of the foregoing arguments and inferences are that in flies 
 purporting or intended to imitate natural insects, size and 
 colour are the matters of consequence, and that, apart 
 
32 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 from mechanical considerations as to the structure and 
 wearing power of the fly, shape is of very secondary 
 consequence. 
 
 IX 
 
 TONE 
 
 One theory of some who do not believe in the colour vision 
 of trout is that it is tone only of which they are conscious 
 — meaning by tone, I assume, shade of colour, irrespec- 
 tive of what that colour may be — so that all colours of 
 similar shade look alike to him — say a neutral grey as to 
 a totally colour-blind man. It is an attractive theory in 
 that it might account for cases of trout seeing likenesses 
 between the artificial fly and the natural fly where man sees 
 only differences — such as the case of the Blue or Grey Quill 
 being taken for the pale watery dun at least as well as, 
 if not better than, the Little Marryat, or of the Orange Quill 
 being taken for the blue-winged olive or its spinner — at 
 dusk. It does not, however, seem to account for cases 
 within one's daily experience on chalk streams where a 
 single pattern proves fatal to the trout after a whole series 
 of other patterns of apparently similar shade have been 
 ostentatiously ignored. It is suggested by some that 
 trout looking up at the fly from below always see it more 
 or less black against a background of sky. There may be 
 instances where this is approximately true, but they must 
 be comparatively few, and more frequent at night than 
 by day, and in either case only when the fly is between the 
 fish and the source of light. Where the source of light is 
 behind the fish^or at either side he will, I am convinced, 
 see (or at any rate be in a position to see) far more colour 
 than the theory under consideration would permit one to 
 suppose. The position is, of course, quite different where 
 
TONE 33 
 
 the light is in any way in his eyes or eye. He might 
 therefore be far less critical of a fly passing on the sunny 
 side than on the shady side of him. The theory allows 
 nothing for the fact that so many natural flies have bodies 
 more or less translucent, nor for the light thrown on to the 
 underside of their bodies by reflection of light from the 
 surface of the water, from the bottom (brown gravel, grey 
 chalk, or red rock), or from the often brilliant-coloured 
 weed-beds below. Looking up from a glass- walled chamber 
 beneath water-level at artificial trout flies floating on the 
 surface, one certainly sees them in much more detail than 
 the theory under consideration would suggest — to say 
 nothing of their being enveloped in iridescent colours, an 
 effect which may be due to their being seen through a 
 prism of water. One sees them thus even where the body 
 of the fly is opaque and gets its effect from reflected light ; 
 and it may be that it presents to the trout by reflected light 
 the same effect as the semi-translucent natural fly presents 
 by means of light partly transmitted and partly reflected. 
 There are, of course, many artificial flies in which, by means 
 of dubbing, or celluloid, or stained gut, or horsehair, an 
 effect of translucency of body is obtained similar to that 
 of the natural insect represented, and often a bit more 
 brilliant. In such cases the trout would get the effect of 
 transmitted as well as reflected light — and one may appeal 
 to the experience of anglers as to the efficacy of such 
 patterns to combat the tone theory. That theory, more- 
 over, hardly accounts for the specially attractive effect 
 of scarlet on the trout. It is not one with which the writer 
 holds, and accordingly he sees no special advantage in the 
 silhouette fly patterns advocated by that very interesting 
 writer and skilful angler, Dr. J. C. Mottram. 
 
34 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 X 
 
 IN DUSK AND DARK 
 
 The capacity of the trout for distinguishing flies in the 
 dusk or dark has often been the subject of comment. I 
 first noted it in September, 1888, on the Coquet, when, 
 the August dun being up, its spinners, after looking like 
 red-hot needles dancing in rays of the setting sun, were 
 later on the water. I was fishing the tail of a run under 
 trees with a team of three flies, all representing the spinner, 
 tied on eyed hooks with gut bodies dyed a flame-coloured 
 orange, a reddish furnace hackle, and wings from the 
 ruddy feather of a partridge's tail. One of my three flies 
 was winged from the portion of the partridge-tail feather 
 which is finely freckled with black, the others from the 
 unfreckled part of the same feather. On several evenings 
 I found the trout invariably selected the fly with the 
 freckled wing and entirely ignored the others. On a 
 Norwegian lake, fishing during the short July night when 
 the wind had dropped dead, I have found the same one of 
 a team of flies accepted again and again while the others 
 were ignored. On the chalk streams again, the ability 
 of the fish to draw fine distinctions at night must have 
 struck every observer. I recall one evening when the 
 trout were taking the natural blue-winged olive well. I 
 tried a Red Quill dyed orange on a No. 1 hook, after getting 
 my solitary Orange Quill soaked and slimy through killing 
 a brace ; but the trout would have none of it — though they 
 took the Orange Quill again when I had washed and dried 
 it. Yet the only distinction between the two patterns 
 was that the quill of the Orange Quill was plain condor, 
 and in the Red Quill it was the usual ribbed peacock. It 
 was dyed in the same dye in each case. In fact, the Red 
 
IN DUSK AND DARK 35 
 
 Quills had been supplied to me as Orange Quills. That 
 was years ago, and I have the remains of the dozen still, 
 for they have never been any good to me. Again, I recall 
 one evening when I rose eighteen trout, all short, to a Tup's 
 Indispensable dressed to represent a spinner with a ruddy 
 colouring, and then, putting on a fly of identical size with 
 a body of rusty-red seal's fur, I began to get firm rises 
 immediately. This must have been something more than 
 a coincidence. 
 
 I have had it suggested to me by a distinguished angling 
 writer, whose opinions deserve respectful consideration, 
 that trout disregard colour during the daytime, but dis- 
 tinguish it at night. While accepting the latter proposi- 
 tion, I do not accept the former, though I do not profess 
 to understand how they see colour under either condition. 
 
 It might seem bold to express the opinion that they 
 distinguish textures at night, seeing that they undoubtedly 
 take confections of feathers, silk, and fur for natural flies; 
 but I think it clear that at times they evince at night a 
 preference for artificial flies of one texture of body or wing 
 rather than another, such as herl, rather than quill, or vice 
 versa, as indeed they do by day. For instance, the difference 
 between landrail and starling dyed to landrail colour is 
 not very obvious to any but the trained eye of the fly 
 dresser, but I have known trout reject the sedge fly winged 
 with dyed starling and greedily accept an exactly similar 
 pattern winged with landrail. Again, it is well known 
 that an Iron-blue nymph hackled with the blue-black 
 feather from the throat of a jackdaw will be accepted 
 freely when a fly hackled with an apparently identical 
 hackle from the crest or other part of the same bird will 
 be contemptuously ignored. In the same way the Water- 
 hen Bloa must be hackled with a feather from one par- 
 ticular row of feathers from under the waterhen's wing — 
 
36 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 the similarly coloured feather from the next row being 
 useless. Other less well-known instances will be familiar 
 to North-Country fly-fishermen. Numerous instances could 
 no doubt be recounted where trout drew no such distinc- 
 tions, for their fastidiousness is much more marked on 
 some waters than on others. Indeed, I once fished a 
 tributary of the Test where my host told me the only fly 
 I need use, whatever might be on, was the Red Quill. It 
 was an August day, with a nice rise of pale watery duns, 
 but the trout took the Red Quill all day. Thank goodness, 
 the trout of my length of the Itchen know enough to keep 
 one guessing all the time. 
 
 And now comes the time to consider the upward vision of 
 the trout. 
 
 XI 
 
 LOOKING UPWARD 
 
 At this stage I should like to consider further the theory 
 put forward by writers well deserving of attention that the 
 colours of flies, natural or artificial, are not distinguishable 
 by the fish because the fly comes between the trout's eye 
 and the light. 
 
 In order to do this effectively it will be well to get some 
 idea first of how things look to the human eye from under 
 water, not because the trout necessarily sees exactly in the 
 same way, but because it is the only way in which it is 
 possible for man to realize the lighting conditions of the 
 under-water world. The theory above mentioned is 
 generally supported by reference to the experiment of 
 placing a glass dish containing water in such a position that 
 lying on one's back one can look up through it at a floating 
 fly. In such a position no doubt the fly would be against 
 
LOOKING UPWARD 37 
 
 the light, and it would probably appear indistinct in 
 colouring, for one would be looking perpendicularly upwards 
 into the light. A trout, however, seldom sees a floating 
 fly by looking perpendicularly upwards at it. Indeed, at 
 the moment of taking it it must be at least the distance 
 from his eye of the tip of his neb, and while the fly is 
 approaching the trout more or less rapidly it must be 
 seen at an angle to the perpendicular from the trout's eye 
 to the surface. In these conditions the trout cannot 
 always have the fly between him and the strongest light. 
 If the sun be low and be shining directly down-stream 
 towards the trout, then the conditions would approximate 
 to those of the experiment quoted, and the light would 
 be entirely from behind the fly, and its colour, unless it be 
 transparent, would not perhaps be readily distinguishable. 
 
 But if the sun were exactly the opposite way and were 
 shining exactly behind the line in which the fish is swim- 
 ming, would not one suppose that the approaching fly 
 would receive enough illumination to enable the trout to 
 apply to it such appreciation of colour as he possesses? 
 Between this condition of things and the condition pre- 
 vailing when the light is coming right down into the trout's 
 eyes, there must be a large range of conditions in which 
 a greater or less degree of visibility of colour would appear 
 to be possible. 
 
 This is, of course, all upon the assumption (which may 
 not be correct) that the trout sees as man does. His eye 
 is adapted to the medium in which it works, and it is at 
 least conceivable that it is so constructed as to enable him 
 to overcome the difficulty of appreciating colour with the 
 fight behind it. It is certain that it has a faculty of choice 
 of fly, indicating a degree of appreciation of colour, or tone, 
 or texture in the dark or deep dusk, so that it might not 
 want much light on the underside of the fly to enable it to 
 
38 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 appreciate its colour, tone, or texture in any direction. 
 The light reflected from the bottom, gravel, rock, or weed, 
 might be enough. We do not know. 
 
 I was given the privilege, some few years ago, by Dr. 
 Francis Ward, the author of " Marvels of Fish Life," of 
 spending some hours in his underground observation 
 chamber built below water-level on the side of an artificial 
 pond with plate-glass sides cutting off the water from the 
 chamber; and with the assistance of Mr. H. T. Sheringham, 
 the Angling Editor of the Field, I made some brief experi- 
 ments in the direction of trying to divine how trout see 
 the fly, whether floating or sunk. 
 
 The pond was a cement construction, lined at bottom 
 with rock and pebble, but showing from the darkened ob- 
 servation chamber in one side a far side of bare cement. The 
 water came flush with the top of the glass window. The 
 first thing that struck me was that the whole cup of the 
 pond seemed reflected upside down except for a little semi- 
 circle of light just above my head, and as one looked up 
 into the semi-circle of light it seemed as if one were gazing 
 into a big ball of water with a little round hole of rainbow 
 light at the top, and except at this hole the sky was cut off 
 by a sort of mirror, like plate-glass. But the tank was full 
 of light, reflected from the bottom and no doubt back 
 again from the mirror made by the underside of the 
 surface. The semi-circle, of course, indicated by its edge 
 the margin beyond which rays from above proceeding in 
 the direction of the observer's eye ceased to penetrate the 
 surface. I believe that rays striking the water at an angle 
 of more than 48 degrees to the perpendicular above the 
 eye of the observer will be reflected back skywards and 
 substantially do not penetrate. In the same way if one 
 looks beyond the edge of the semi-circle — i.e., outside the 
 angle of 48 degrees — one does not see through the surface, 
 
LOOKING UPWARD 39 
 
 but only sees the bottom of the tank reflected on the 
 surface. Thus a fly floating on the surface outside the 
 angle of 48 degrees from the perpendicular to the eye of 
 the observer is unseen, unless it or a part of it penetrates 
 the surface, or makes some impression on it breaking up 
 its mirror-like smoothness. If some impression only is 
 made, it may, and no doubt does, afford the fish some 
 indication that something, which may be fly-food, is ap- 
 proaching. If it, or any part of it, breaks through the 
 surface, then that part only which breaks through the 
 surface becomes visible outside the angle of 48 degrees, 
 and it is reflected against the underside of the surface. 
 This was well illustrated by the effect produced by the 
 gardener's birch broom being thrust into the water to sweep 
 aside some discarded shucks which had fallen from budding 
 trees into the water. Only that part of the broom which 
 was put through the surface was visible, and that was 
 duplicated by reflection. The rest, for all that could be 
 seen of it, might as well not have existed. 
 
 But inside the semi-circle, within the angle of 48 degrees, 
 everything floating on the surface was not only visible, 
 it was extremely clearly visible, and was surrounded by a 
 prismatic radiance which was more specially in evidence 
 the nearer the fly was to the outer edge of the semi-circle. 
 There was no difficulty about distinguishing the colours of 
 flies on the underside or on the sides. Indeed, the effects 
 produced were all much what I have suggested above may 
 be the light effects where the light is behind, or at any 
 rate not directly shining into the eye of the trout. 
 
 I blame myself for not having ascertained and recorded 
 precisely the position of the pond and the observation 
 chamber in relation to the points of the compass, and the 
 relative position of the sun at the time of observation, so 
 that I might be able to deduce with more certainty the 
 
40 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 difference in appearance of a fly with the light between 
 it and the fish and a fly between the fish and the light. 
 The day, however, was very overcast. 
 
 A May fly was the first subject — one tied with summer 
 duck wings, red hackle and tail, and a brown dappled 
 pseudo-natural body — a most effective pattern, by the way, 
 in Southern Germany. The first thing we noticed was that, 
 when thrown on the surface dry, the gut was not noticeable 
 from underneath, except in the semi-circle of light, and not 
 very noticeable then. Outside that area the fly was like 
 the broom. No part of it could be seen, except what had 
 broken the surface film and passed through it. Thus, one 
 sometimes saw the hook only — more generally part of the 
 body and the lower part of the hackle — and we could 
 conceive that, to a trout, a floating artificial May fly, 
 not too dry, passing outside the transparent circle 
 above his head, would appear at a little distance like a 
 nymph, only taking shape as a winged fly when he got 
 it within the circle of light above his head. Beyond this 
 there was the fact that to us the under-water parts were 
 duplicated by reflection. In the rainbow semi-circle of 
 light above the observer's head in the pond the whole 
 artificial May fly became not only visible, but extraordinarily 
 and brilliantly so. The wings seemed coated with a spun- 
 glass brilliance which was most attractive. It may have 
 been all in the observer's eye, because it is quite conceivable 
 that, looking up through a triangular wedge of water, one 
 may have been looking through a sort of prism, which 
 perhaps gave the rainbow effects above referred to. 
 
 With the May fly sunk below the surface, much of the 
 brilliance was lost, and the gut became obvious at once. 
 But whether the fly was outside or within the rainbow 
 hole at the top, it was extremely difficult for the observer 
 to say that it was not on the surface, except by deduction 
 
LOOKING UPWARD 41 
 
 from the fact that it was visible, and would not have been so 
 outside the semi-circle had it been floating. A sunken fly was 
 readily visible at quite a distance through the water, when 
 a floating fly at much less distance was, but for the hook, 
 clean out of sight. The insistence of the dry-fly angler on 
 extreme accuracy of casting and absolute dryness of gut and 
 fly seems, from these observations, so far as they go, to be 
 thoroughly justified. It is also obvious why a trout which 
 will move a long way to intercept a nymph or sunken fly 
 is not to be tempted by a dry fly that does not come 
 accurately over him into the circle of light above his head. 
 Later we sank a large Pink Wickham, and it looked dead 
 as mutton, and with the light behind it all the golden 
 brilliance of its body was lost. Not even in the magic 
 semi-circle above the observer was the glitter visible, but 
 it is conceivable that, were the fly floated over brilliant 
 green weed in sunshine, the green of the weed might be 
 thrown upwards on to the belly of the fly, so as to repro- 
 duce the effect of a green-bodied sedge. In the dull light 
 which we had, the brown stone bottom sent off too little 
 reflection to give any noticeable effect. Even as it was 
 the body did not look black. But some silver-bodied 
 and gold-bodied salmon flies, which were dangled over 
 sheets of metal painted blue, green and red, took up these 
 colours, despite the dull day, very splendidly. So there 
 can be no doubt that the effect of colour reflected from 
 the under-water surroundings on the body and hackle of 
 a trout fly is a question of degree. It may be consider- 
 able. The old trout-fly dressers were well aware of the 
 ability of hackles — especially cock's hackles — and furs to 
 take up light and colour from one another, so as to attain 
 unsuspected harmonies. Thus, you might take two dun 
 cock's hackles, apparently exactly alike, and, trying one 
 over a mole's-fur body, get a dusty grey effect, and, tying 
 
 6 
 
42 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 the other over a hare's-ear body, get a rusty brown effect ! 
 They also knew the value of an admixture of seal's fur or 
 mohair in the body, in throwing up and affecting the colour- 
 ing of the hackle. And I cannot help thinking that the 
 rage for quills sacrifices a great deal that was of value — 
 and still would be — in the dubbed body of the trout fly. 
 
 A small spent spinner — one of the then new Halford 
 patterns — dropped on the surface showed nothing whatever, 
 except an extremely black and obvious hook, duplicated 
 by reflection, breaking through the surface in a tiny patch 
 of blurred and broken light, due, no doubt, to the hackles ; 
 and when viewed in the rainbow semi-circle one could not 
 candidly say that it looked (apart from the hackles) at all 
 fly-like, or anything but dense and hard against the light. 
 But my friend told me that when the spinner was floating 
 less high on its hackles, and was in fact somewhat water- 
 logged, it looked very fly-like and attractive. A home- 
 made Tup's Indispensable, tried next, had a distinct 
 advantage over the spinner when floating. Sunk, it 
 presented quite a nymph-like appearance, and it was quite 
 comprehensible that a trout might come some way to 
 fetch it. The same might be said of some seal's-fur- 
 bodied nymphs which we also tried. In a dull, shabby 
 way they had a lot of translucency. We next tried to 
 fathom why a Greenwell's Glory, fished wet, should be 
 taken at all below the surface. As my companion said, 
 it was " a fine representation of a Greenwell's Glory," and 
 on the surface it might have passed as a rather shabby 
 olive. Under water it went down always with its narrow 
 wings upright, and it may be that it is taken because the 
 trout is too foolish to realize that it is not on the surface. 
 Much the same might be said of a small dotterel hackle, 
 tied Stewart- wise, with waxed primrose silk on a No. oo 
 hook. It might have been taken for a hatching nymph 
 
LOOKING UPWARD IN DUSK AND DARK 43 
 
 caught at a disadvantage with its wings half out, or, again, 
 it might not, but I cannot think of anything else. 
 
 I was not below in the observation chamber to observe 
 the effect of a floating Coch-y-bondhu made in the old style, 
 or a Kennedy's floating Coch-y-bondhu beetle. Our last 
 experiment with the trout fly was with a good-sized floating 
 Sedge, but I recall nothing new or of interest about it. 
 
 I recognize that it is not safe to dogmatize or deduce 
 very much from these very incomplete, very brief, and 
 very imperfect observations, made by one like myself 
 not equipped with the scientific knowledge to draw the 
 inevitably right deductions from them, and the little which I 
 have since observed does not take me much further. I do not 
 know the true meaning of the structure of a trout's eye. I 
 cannot tell what may have been the disturbing or distorting 
 effect of the sheet of plate-glass between me and the water. 
 And there are doubtless many other factors I have not 
 allowed for, and I recognize that the course of experiment 
 ought to be pursued systematically for weeks and months 
 and years in all sorts of lights and all sorts of weather 
 before any safe deductions can be drawn. So my readers 
 (if any have got so far) will understand me that I am putting 
 forward this record of my observations, not as establishing 
 anything, but as containing perhaps some suggestions for 
 investigation which others, more fortunately situated and 
 better equipped than I am, may be able to follow up and 
 verify or disprove. 
 
 XII 
 
 LOOKING UPWARD IN DUSK AND DARK 
 
 Under another heading we have considered the trout's 
 vision looking upward in daylight. Let us now try and 
 put ourselves in his place after the sun has gone down 
 
44 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 and darkness is supervening. What effect has this upon 
 the trout ? 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that, until the sun's rim dips, 
 the evening rise does not begin. Often it does not begin 
 then; but, though a stray fish may take a fly here and 
 there, generally in parts when the sun shines down-stream, 
 the evening rise proper never begins before, and it often 
 begins directly after — immediately, that is, that the sun's 
 direct rays are off the water. It is true that this is the 
 time that spinners choose to come down upon the water — 
 sometimes spent and dying, often with wings erect. But 
 at times one sees quite enough new subimagines hatching 
 just before sunset to bring on a rise if it were at any other 
 time of day, and often there are many spinners then on 
 the water. And if there be a hill, or high river bank, or a 
 screen of trees which takes the direct sunlight off the water 
 earlier than the hour of sunset, there one sees the evening 
 rise accelerated. This is a fact of which the angler, desirous 
 of making the most of his evening, may make profitable 
 use while waiting for the general evening rise to begin. It 
 would seem, therefore, that the diffused light reflected from 
 the sky after sunset provides the trout with better con- 
 ditions for seeing his surface prey than are afforded by the 
 sunlight impinging directly, but at a low angle, upon the 
 surface. The lighting may be scanty — but what there is 
 of it strikes to a large extent straight down from the sky — 
 and it would almost seem as if the trout could thus see 
 better than if vision were confused by the almost horizontal 
 rays of the setting sun. It would be interesting to see 
 whether similar conditions prevail just before sunrise. 
 I have never been up early enough to see. I have often 
 observed that on a dull day, with diffused light only, the 
 trout are much more alive to the presence of the angler 
 on the bank, and much more cautious in their scrutiny of 
 
LOOKING UPWARD IN DUSK AND DARK 45 
 
 the artificial fly than on a bright day with full sunlight. 
 The dull day of milk-and-watery glare makes the water 
 look much clearer and full of light than does the bright day. 
 
 We have seen from previous investigation that trout 
 have a strange power of drawing distinctions of colour, 
 and perhaps of texture, in the dusk and dark, and it may 
 be that the under-water world is then relatively better 
 lighted for the trout than the above-water world is for 
 man. If this were so, it would account for the trout being 
 able to distinguish colours from underneath. 
 
 Years ago I picked up from a pedlar on Ludgate Hill 
 a square of plate-glass mirror about five inches by five, 
 in the hope that by means of it I might be able to get some 
 idea of how an artificial fly looked to a trout. I placed 
 it at the bottom of a large papier-mache basin, and floated 
 flies over it. But though no doubt it gave a fair idea of 
 how a fly looked in point of shape, I soon concluded that 
 its value from the point of view of colour was probably 
 largely discounted by the fact that the mirror reflected on 
 to the underside of the fly light which in quantity greatly 
 exceeded and in quality of colour greatly differed from 
 that which would be reflected by rock or gravel, or sand or 
 green weed. I therefore carried the matter no further, 
 and the mirror went the way of all mirrors. 
 
 Recently, however, a friend in the medical profession 
 procured and sent me a laryngeal mirror, one of those 
 little circular mirrors on a long metal bar, like those by 
 the aid of which dentists manage to see the interiors of the 
 hollow teeth on which they are working, while they are 
 working on them; and he suggested that by means of the 
 mirror I might readily see how the artificial fly looked 
 to the trout. Though it seemed to me that this experiment 
 must be subject to much the same objection as the former 
 one, yet, seeing that the mirror could be adjusted to get 
 
46 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 a variety of points of view, I tried it. First I was unable 
 to find in my house a bowl which was not white inside ; so, 
 rather than do nothing, I filled a white slop-basin with 
 water and floated on it a pale watery Tup's Indispensable. 
 There could be no doubt about one being able to see the 
 entire coloration of the fly reflected in the mirror just as 
 clearly as one could see it from above. But this may have 
 been, and probably was, largely due to the white colour of 
 the bowl and possibly in part to the light reflected from the 
 mirror. I tried a Whirling Blue dun under the same con- 
 ditions and with the same result, and the only good I got 
 from the experiment was to prove the fact that, at a distance 
 which might be measured in fractions of an inch, the mirror, 
 if held only just under the surface, showed no part of the 
 fly except those parts of hook and hackle which had 
 penetrated the surface. At this stage I abandoned the 
 experiment with the white basin, satisfied with having 
 seen again how it might be that the deeper a trout lies the 
 larger is the circle through which he is able to see the floating 
 fly, and the nearer the surface he lies the smaller the circle, 
 and that as he approaches it or it approaches him very 
 closely he may scarcely be able to see anything of it but 
 the impress of its feet or hackle on the surface, and thus 
 may be blind to its incorrectness of detail, and may be 
 satisfied with the general impression which he gained while 
 it was farther off. 
 
 The next step was to procure coloured jars for a resump- 
 tion of the investigation with the laryngeal mirror, and I 
 selected jars of dark green and dark brown as being the 
 colours best approximating to weed and rock, and deep down 
 in them, in a room too far from a window for direct light 
 from the sky to strike the surface of the water, I floated 
 a Red Quill and a Pheasant-tail Red spinner. Putting the 
 mirror deep under them, I saw every detail with all the clear- 
 
LOOKING UPWARD IN DUSK AND DARK 47 
 
 ness of detail with which I saw it looking down upon it in 
 the open. Later on, in a corner of the Itchen in the shelter 
 of a boathouse and a bank, I placed the mirror under some 
 natural red spinners and pale watery duns floating spent 
 upon the surface, and again every detail was as clear from 
 below as it was to me looking down upon the flies from 
 above. This test may have been vitiated by the fact that 
 it was carried out under the open sky, so that the little 
 mirror may have reflected upon the flies the light which 
 made the detail clear. At any rate, up to this point I 
 have seen nothing to prove that the trout looking up at 
 the floating fly, natural or artificial, sees it in silhouette 
 without colour (except, perhaps, when the fly is directly 
 between him and a strong light), and much to lead me to 
 think that he probably sees it, according to his capacity 
 for appreciating colour, as clearly from below as man 
 does from above. I consulted Dr. Francis Ward, the 
 author of " Marvels of Fish Life," upon the subject, and 
 he suggested the use of a trench periscope so boxed in as 
 to exclude all possibility of the mirror reflecting back 
 upon the underside of the fly the light of the sky, but up to 
 the present I have not been able to give the scheme the 
 necessary attention. 
 
 There is, however, the indisputable fact that the trout, 
 which at dusk, in the absence of moonlight, is unable to 
 distinguish the angler casting a short line close behind 
 him, is able to make fine distinctions of pattern in the flies 
 presented to him, and that fact suggests to me that the 
 under-water region is better lighted for his vision than 
 the air above. 
 
PART IV 
 
 HOW 
 
 I 
 THE MOUTH OF A TROUT 
 
 "And lo, it stuck 
 Right in his little gill." 
 
 Dr. Watts. 
 
 Among the many hundreds of trout which have been the 
 victims of my luck or skill, I have never known one which 
 was hooked in the gill, pace the good Dr. Watts. So it is 
 not unreasonable to conclude that the indraught of water 
 which takes the angler's fly into the trout's mouth does 
 not, by some miracle of contrivance, project the fly against 
 the gills by which the indrawn water is expelled. 
 
 The mouth of a trout is, relatively to his weight and 
 length, larger than that of any, I think, of our fresh-water 
 fishes, except perhaps that of the pike. It is serrated all 
 round the edge with fine teeth, and the roof of the mouth 
 and the tongue are armed with far more formidable ones. 
 For the purposes of taking and retaining the fly I cannot 
 conceive that these teeth are of much service. They seem 
 better suited to the purpose of the capture of minnows 
 and other small fry, which but for them might escape by 
 wriggling, and I have little doubt that the escapes so 
 often made by a too lightly held trout are often due to his 
 using the tongue-teeth as a sort of toothpick, to extract the 
 hook from the roof of his mouth or the side of his jaw. 
 
 4 8 
 
 
THE MOUTH OF A TROUT 49 
 
 If the angler in his bath makes the experiment of trying 
 from below water to catch some small floating object on 
 the surface, he will find it evade him again and again, 
 pushed away by the current set up by his approaching 
 hand, and it looks a miracle that the same thing should 
 not occur with the trout, especially when his approach 
 is swift. But if the feeding trout be watched as he rises 
 to the fly, it will be noted that there is, as he opens his 
 mouth, an expansion of the gills which carries a stream 
 of water, and with it the insect, in with a rush. What is the 
 process by which, on the water being ejected through the 
 gill, the fly, natural or artificial, is retained is not known 
 to me. It may be an operation of the tongue, but I think 
 not. In any case, until the water is sufficiently expelled 
 to enable the fish to feel or taste the capture, there is 
 necessarily an interval, which constitutes the angler's 
 opportunity, when that fly is his artificial one, to pull the 
 hook home. When the fish is taking larvae, or nymphs, or 
 other subaqueous life carried by the current, the process 
 is just the same. It is probable that if, in either case, the 
 fish lipped the hook or the gut, there would be an instan- 
 taneous ejection of the dangerous morsel. Taste (which 
 is, after all, a phase or development of the sense of touch) 
 would warn him that at best the object was indigestible 
 and unprofitable; experience might hint that it was 
 dangerous. When trout are well on they take with a big 
 gulp, often accompanied by a distinct " gluck " or smack 
 of the lips; but there are days when the fly seems to be 
 sipped in with a minimum of water through scarcely opened 
 lips, and on such days the angler is apt to miss an abnormal 
 proportion of rises. 
 
 This, then, being the method of the trout in feeding, 
 one can readily see that minute accuracy of observation of 
 the relative parts of a fly, as regards arrangement and 
 
 7 
 
50 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 proportion, is not of consequence to him, except to guard 
 him against the angler. Innumerable natural flies come 
 down to him partially entangled in their shucks (is it 
 possible that the bronzed hook is ever taken for an adhering 
 shuck ?), or in disarray through some misfortune or another, 
 and all that is essential for feeding purposes is that he 
 should take that which in size and in combination of 
 colours is like that on which he has been feeding. Any closer 
 noting of detail would be as much thrown away as would 
 minute observation of the detail of each fish be thrown away 
 in the case of a diner eating whitebait at the Carlton. 
 Each fly is too tiny a morsel, and passes too quickly, for 
 much leisure to be spent on inspection. 
 
 II 
 
 A SPECULATION IN BUBBLES 
 
 In the oft-repeated description of the imagined intro- 
 duction of the novice to the dry-fly art, the typical classic 
 touch in the drama is the disappearance of the dun and 
 the single bubble floating where a moment before the dun 
 had been. But never in all the papers and articles in 
 which I have read this description have I seen the faintest 
 speculation as to how the bubble comes about. Yet it 
 may be worth while to consider the way in which it is 
 produced. 
 
 It is true that, if one lies supine in a deep bath full 
 of water with one's arm submerged and brings one's finger- 
 tips to the surface, like the neb of a trout taking down a 
 fly, and then turns them sharply down under water, one 
 may produce a bubble or bubbles — generally the latter. 
 It will, however, be found that some degree of violence is 
 needed to produce the effect. But when a big trout is 
 
A SPECULATION IN BUBBLES 51 
 
 taking flies under a bank, and sending down single bubbles 
 at each rise, he usually seems to be taking so softly, with 
 such a minimum of effort and such an almost imperceptible 
 dimple, as to exclude the idea of the degree of violence 
 necessary to produce the tell-tale bubble. Clearly the air 
 which fills the bubble is not in the mouth of the trout as 
 he rises. There is, however, another possible explanation. 
 When the trout sucks in the floating fly, is it not likely that 
 he at the same time sucks in some air with it, and that he has 
 to expel it: that in the act of expelling the water which 
 he draws in with the fly he also expels the air with the water 
 in the form of the bubble which gives away the position ? 
 It is in favour of this solution, that when trout are bulging, 
 or in softer fashion taking nymphs under water, or even 
 spent spinners flush with the surface, one does not note the 
 bubble. It is only when floating flies, standing up on the 
 surface, are being absorbed that one sees it, the reason 
 probably being that it is more likely to require a gulp of 
 air to take down a creature standing on the water and in 
 the air than to take anything under or even flush with and 
 adhering to the surface. The value of this, if it could be 
 established, is that the presence of the bubble would be a 
 fair indication that the trout producing it was engaged in 
 the taking of floating duns. 
 
 Ill - 
 
 THE RISE 
 
 When the angler sees a tell-tale ring upon the surface 
 of river or lake, he is apt to say, "There is a rise." But 
 if, when fishing, he should have his fly taken by a trout, 
 whether under the water or at the surface, he would in 
 recounting the incident say, if he were a Briton, " I had 
 
52 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 a rise." If an American, he would say, " I had a strike." 
 The term " rise " is, therefore, used rather loosely — so 
 loosely that for the purpose of considering the subject 
 thoroughly it is desirable to start with a comprehensive 
 definition of what it is intended to cover by the term in 
 the course of this discussion. I propose, therefore, to use 
 the term here, not in the sense of indicating the break in 
 the surface caused by the movement of a trout in the act 
 of feeding on insect life, but as covering every movement 
 of the fish in the act of so feeding. 
 
 Now trout inhabit waters of all degrees of pace and 
 stillness, and of all degrees of depth and shallowness. 
 In all of them they feed on insect life; and it must be 
 manifest to the merest tyro that differing conditions 
 produce differing evolutions in the act of feeding. The items 
 of insect nourishment absorbed by a trout are, in general, 
 individually small, and, as a mere matter of instinctive 
 natural economy, it could not pay a trout to expend in 
 securing his prey more effort than the nourishment produced 
 by the food would replace, or even so much, if he is to live 
 and thrive. 
 
 From this reasoning one can see why big trout tend to 
 feed on the natural fly less and less, and are often only to be 
 tempted by the May fly or a big sedge. They prefer to 
 spend their efforts in securing prey of a size which will more 
 than repay the effort expended in securing it. From this 
 cause the older trout are apt to become cannibals. For the 
 same reason the trout of comparatively gentle and not too 
 deep streams, where the fly is secured with the minimum 
 expenditure of effort, will continue to be fly-feeders till 
 they have reached a greater size than the trout of faster 
 streams or of deeper, slow streams or lakes, where the 
 coarse fish and the life of the river or lake bottom present 
 larger individual items of diet in sufficient profusion. 
 
THE RISE 53 
 
 The trout, therefore, though a powerful and vigorous 
 fish, may be accounted a lazy one in the sense that he 
 persistently maintains the utmost economy of effort 
 consistent with living and thriving, and with the satis- 
 faction of a healthy appetite as a means to that end. 
 He will never face a strong stream for the mere pleasure 
 of doing so. At times he may seem to be doing so, but 
 careful observation will generally show either that he is 
 in dead or comparatively slow water, or that he is getting 
 such a supply of food brought to him by the current as to 
 compensate him for the effort. He need not be seen to 
 break the water, for a stream of subaqueous food is being 
 brought to him, so that the faintest turn to right or left, 
 or upwards or downwards, enables him to field it with the 
 minimum of exertion. Again, except to intercept another 
 fish or to prevent the imminent escape of his prey, he will 
 seldom swim against a strong or even moderately strong 
 current to get food which the current would bring to him. 
 An apparent exception, which may at times be noted at 
 the beginning of a rise, of a trout, generally a big one, 
 cruising upstream and feeding as he goes, is not a real 
 exception; for that trout, if he be watched, will be found 
 to have been proceeding from his hole or shelter to a 
 corner where he may expect a concentrated stream of 
 fly -food to be brought to him by the current. 
 
 Thus, in still or slow waters which do not bring a suffi- 
 cient supply of food quickly enough, trout either feed 
 upon the bottom, or in mid-water, or near the surface, but 
 in either case must cruise to find the food which is not 
 brought to them. 
 
 Again, in eddies of swift or comparatively swift streams, 
 where during the rise little fleets of becalmed duns or 
 other insects lie almost motionless, trout will be observed 
 cruising slowly along, picking one here and another there, 
 
54 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 and luring the angler ever upward till suddenly the rising 
 ceases, and the trout is seen ready to resume his beat at 
 the bottom of the eddy, which he will do unless scared by 
 the angler or his rod. 
 
 Thus it appears that in different conditions trout rise 
 in a variety of ways, and the observation one hears made 
 that one has to strike more rapidly to hook the trout 
 of this river than the trout of such and such another river 
 only means that the conditions of the former river exact a 
 quicker rise than those of the latter. This may in part 
 be due to the fact that the trout of the former river run 
 smaller than those of the latter, as, the larger the trout, the 
 slower, other things being equal, is his rise. 
 
 With these preliminary considerations before us, let 
 us proceed to examine the action of trout rising under 
 varying conditions. A good start may be made in the 
 High Street of Winchester, where below the Town Hall 
 a fast but narrow stream runs from a culvert between 
 brick walls alongside the Public Gardens. There one may 
 generally see several brace of vigorous trout, but it will 
 be rare to see one break the surface in feeding. Yet 
 that they are well fed is evident. The stream is shallow, 
 but they lie as deep as they can, and the swifter part of 
 the water passes overhead. To test how they feed, 
 however, make a few little rolls of new bread and throw 
 them in. In a moment the fish is in the current. He does 
 not rush to meet the bread. He merely adjust his fins, and 
 the current swings the roll to his mouth, where it is sucked 
 in by the expansion of his gills. In just the same way the 
 trout of a glassy glide, just below and flush with a carrier 
 which prevents them from seeing many natural insects on 
 the surface, may at the time of a strong rise be seen busily 
 stemming the strong current and moving slightly to left 
 or right to meet and take in the ascending nymph, or what- 
 
THE RISE 55 
 
 ever it may be, brought down by the stream. If, how- 
 ever, the food supply brought down be scanty the fish 
 may be seen lying in holes and behind or in front of rocks 
 and weed patches, and either inert or picking food off the 
 weeds, or lifting for a moment into the current to annex 
 something, and dropping back again to a position of 
 shelter which deflects the main weight of the current from 
 them. 
 
 Looking over a stone bridge one will often see a good 
 trout just above a pier or pillar which divides the current, 
 where he is in a sort of cushion of slow water which makes 
 the least demand on his energies, but leaves him free to 
 move rapidly into the stream to either side to inter- 
 cept subaqueous food. In such a position he but rarely 
 comes up to the surface, whether for a natural or an 
 artificial fly. 
 
 Another position of great advantage for a trout is the 
 tail of a pool. There he can lie low in comparatively 
 shallow water with the weight of the current passing over 
 him, and the whole of the food coming down from the pool 
 concentrated into the neck, as it were, of the bottle, so 
 that with a minimum of exertion he can take toll. 
 
 Similar positions of vantage are to be found in rough 
 streams where the current pours between two rocks, and 
 the trout can swing out from shelter into the current to 
 snatch his fly and be back again. 
 
 In all these instances the trout will take far more food 
 below than at the surface. Let us suppose, however, that 
 lying deep he sees a fly coming down the stream on the 
 surface. He is lying horizontally in the water. He shifts 
 the plane of his fins, the current sends him upward, and 
 thereupon his body, instead of meeting the current end-on 
 as hitherto, receives some of the force of the current on 
 its underside, and, exposing thus a larger surface to the 
 
56 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 force of the current, he tends to drop back down- stream, as 
 his mouth comes up to meet the fly, with the body at times 
 almost perpendicular to the surface. Then, opening his 
 mouth, our fish by means of an expansion of his gills 
 induces a small current of water, carrying the fly in with 
 it. It is at this stage that he makes the only real effort, 
 beyond the initial alteration of the plane of his fins, in the 
 whole process. He has to turn down to regain his station, 
 and this requires a vigorous turn of the whole body in order 
 to overcome the upward thrust of the current, and to 
 convert what was an upward movement into a downward 
 one. It is this turn downwards, with its brisk curving 
 of the body and sharp thrust of the tail, that produces 
 that surface effect which, in the case of a fish feeding under 
 these conditions, is commonly known as " the rise." And 
 it follows that the faster the water the more vigorous that 
 turn must be, though a swirling water will disguise and 
 carry away its effect much more than will a smooth stream. 
 The structure of the vertebral column of the trout 
 does not permit of much movement in any direction, 
 except the lateral. Therefore the downward turn, where 
 it cannot by reason of the force of the stream be effected 
 by means of the fin planes alone, has to be effected by a 
 sideways twist, the flash of which (as "the little brown wink 
 under water") has so often afforded to the wet-fly angler 
 the one hint that it is time for him to tighten on his fish. 
 Chalk and limestone streams generally present numerous 
 points of vantage where the stream, with or without the 
 aid of the wind, concentrates a steady sequence of surface 
 food, and it is at such points that trout will be poised, either 
 in shelter, ready to ascend, if the stream be strong, or near 
 the surface, if the stream be gentle. These points are gener- 
 ally under banks or at the tails of weeds from which the 
 ascending nymphs are shed, and these are accordingly the 
 
THE RISE 57 
 
 places watched by anglers. And it will often be found that, 
 even when there is no rise of fly, a small Sedge fly floated 
 over such a place will bring up a trout which, perhaps for 
 fear of being displaced by a rival, is hanging on to his 
 place of vantage. 
 
 But, alike in chalk streams and in other streams, there 
 are slow lengths where the surface food does not come 
 rapidly enough to permit of a fish waiting for it. In these, 
 therefore, he will be cruising, either at the surface or in mid- 
 water or deep, with an upward eye on the surface and the 
 intervening water. If he be cruising at the surface he 
 will sip the fly gently with a minimum of effort. If, how- 
 ever, he be lying at mid-water or deep and comes up to 
 the fly, he will do so with a slash or a" strike," as if he 
 feared to be intercepted by a rival; but he will gather 
 most of his food in mid- water or at bottom. In these 
 conditions it may well be understood that a big fly of a 
 beetle type, well sunk and drawn slowly or in short darts, 
 may often prove far more attractive than a floater. The 
 Ramsbury water on the upper Kennet, rented for a term 
 by Mr. F. M. Halford and his friends, is in its lower lengths, 
 at any rate above the Mill (locally called "pounds"), 
 nearly all of the mill-head character, and that no doubt 
 accounts for the failure of the most able management, 
 in spite of lavish expenditure on stocking and on destruc- 
 tion of enemies, to convert it into a free-rising water. It 
 may therefore be judged that such waters present a legiti- 
 mate case, not only for the wet fly, but for a dragging wet fly. 
 
 It is the stream of moderate pace and comparatively 
 even flow, therefore, that is suitable for the dry fly. The 
 upstream wet fly fished without drag is suitable to that 
 type and to faster and rougher streams, and the dragging 
 wet fly may be used at both ends of the scale. 
 
 My lake-fishing experience has been so slight as to 
 
 8 
 
58 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 disentitle me to say much about it. But it seems to me 
 that the same principles which apply to the rise of trout 
 in slow or still waters in rivers must be found in action 
 in the case of trout in lakes. In my limited experience all 
 the big fish have seemed to be found as a general rule on 
 shelving ledges where the water ran from six to ten feet 
 deep, and they lie or cruise at the bottom and come up 
 with a slash at the fly. Often the only rises seen are 
 those which are evoked by the angler's flies; and it would 
 seem that the main food was at the bottom, but that 
 surface food, if sufficiently attractive, was not despised. 
 That would seem to account for the fact that lake flies 
 are dressed larger than corresponding river flies, for I 
 suppose experience has proved that the trout is unwilling 
 to come up far for a small fly. 
 
 Occasionally, however, when the wind has dropped, trout 
 may be seen making small dimples on the surface of a lake ; 
 and I recall one such occasion when I picked up in a 
 morning six brace of fish approaching a pound average, 
 fishing a long line ending with a Greenwell's Glory, double- 
 dressed on gut with No. oo hooks, and cast behind the 
 eye of the fish, which again and again turned and took it 
 with the greatest innocence. 
 
 So far in my observations I have dealt with the fish 
 taking the fly as food, and not from any other motive, 
 such as curiosity, tyranny, jealousy, rapacity, or pugnacity 
 (when the action is generally, even in fast water, more in the 
 nature of a strike than a rise) ; and I have not dealt with the 
 nature of the indications of the rise afforded to the fisherman 
 under differing circumstances — for to do that it is essential 
 to consider not only the position and convenience of the 
 trout and the nature of the water, but also the character 
 and condition or life stage of the food which the trout is 
 taking. For it will be found that different classes and 
 
ASSORTED RISES 59 
 
 conditions of food are taken by trout in different ways. And 
 all the movements described are, moreover, further condi- 
 tioned by the season of the year, the health and vigour of 
 the fish, and his ability to contend with fast waters, and 
 his hunger or sportiveness, and his appetite or preference for 
 special varieties of food; also by the state, temperature, 
 and colour of the water, and the character of the light in 
 relation to the fish's position. Sometimes in streams 
 trout are so full of vigour that they throw themselves 
 right out of the water, taking in the fly in the upward rush, 
 and come down head first into the water to resume position. 
 The effect of the character and condition of the food of 
 the trout upon the action of the rise and its indications, 
 and the clues which rises of different character accordingly 
 afford the angler as to the food which is being taken, must 
 be the subject of a separate chapter. 
 
 IV 
 
 ASSORTED RISES 
 
 A close study of the form of the rise may often give the 
 observant angler a clue, otherwise lacking, to the type of 
 fly which the trout is taking, and to the stage and con- 
 dition in which he is taking it. 
 
 So far the present writer has found in angling literature, 
 whether permanent or ephemeral, no systematic attempt 
 to differentiate the varying forms of the rise of trout. 
 There has been little evidence of any general consciousness 
 of distinctions more precise than that between bulging, or 
 under-water taking, and surface feeding, and in this 
 respect this deponent makes no pretence of having been 
 more acute than his fellows. It has, however, for some 
 time past been growing upon him that, as no pheno- 
 
60 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 menon in nature but has its cause, so the varying forms of 
 rise, which every angler with the fly must have observed, 
 are all dictated by the nature of things. It is conceived 
 that there are several things which naturally influence 
 the character of the rise, these being the position of the 
 trout in the water, his degree of confidence or appetite, 
 the smoothness or roughness of the surface, the pace of the 
 current, and the nature and stage of the fly-food being 
 taken. 
 
 In the examination into these matters which follows, the 
 writer makes no claim to be authoritative or exhaustive, 
 but he hopes to awake among the keener minds an interest 
 in the questions discussed which may lead to some pro- 
 nouncement which shall be at once exhaustive and sound 
 in all its conclusions. 
 
 The chalk streams and rivers of quiet and even flow 
 obviously afford greater facilities for observing the pheno- 
 mena of rises than do streams less clear or of more turbulent 
 habit, and it is from the chalk streams that one can most 
 easily acquire the bulk of the data which may be applied, 
 with the necessary qualifications, to the solution of similar 
 questions on other streams. The illustrations here given 
 will, therefore, in general be found to be taken, unless 
 otherwise stated, from chalk streams and chalk-stream 
 fishing, and it is not proposed to deal here with the effect 
 of rapid current on the various types of taking. 
 
 Every chalk-stream fisherman, however much or little 
 he may have thought about the subject, will recognize 
 that there are a great many forms of rise. It is now 
 proposed to consider some of these, and to try and ascertain 
 what clue they severally give to the food the fish is taking. 
 
 Analyzing broadly, the insect taken will be either — 
 (i) poised on the surface; (2) flush with the surface, as 
 being either spent or entangled by wetting of the wings, 
 
ASSORTED RISES 61 
 
 or in the earlier stage of the process of hatching; or (3) 
 subaqueous. 
 
 The best known and the most obvious rise is that in 
 which the trout takes the floating dun or upwinged spinner. 
 It is the foundation rise of dry-fly theory and practice, 
 and it is to this, with the spent spinner rise thrown in, 
 that the dry-fly purist would, in theory at any rate, con- 
 fine the angler. But, as a matter of fact, this super- 
 surface taking forms only a small part of the evidence of 
 a trout's feeding known as the rise, and it is often supremely 
 difficult to determine whether a given rise or series of 
 rises be at food superaqueous, flush, or subaqueous. Much 
 of the floating fly-food of the trout is very small and hard 
 to detect on the surface, and it requires some close watching 
 to say whether it be sipped from above, or at, or just under, 
 the surface. Thus it must come about that many a 
 would-be dry-fly purist has spent busy hours presenting a 
 floating fly (and at times with a measure of success) to 
 trout which are only taking subaqueous food. From this 
 painful and humiliating position there is little chance of 
 escape unless the purist makes a point of actually seeing 
 the fly on the surface taken by the fish (and preferably 
 identifying the insect) before he ventures a cast. Not a 
 great many purists are always so perfectly pure as all that. 
 
 Assuming, however, that the insect be seen coming 
 down to where the fish is seen or known to be lying in 
 wait, the trout comes up from a greater or less depth, with 
 more or less diversion to right or left, and, with more or 
 less confidence or eagerness, and, with a smack, a suck, or 
 a sip, takes down the fly. The smack involves some 
 exposure of the neb and a considerable ring in the water; 
 the suck shows the neb under a small hump of water which 
 never ceases to cover the fish. The sip does not expose 
 the neb at all. A fish coming from a depth and turning 
 
62 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 down again naturally makes more of a swirl, from the energy 
 expended in the movement of turning down again, than 
 does a fish hovering just below the surface and merely 
 putting up a nose. The size of the fly also makes a 
 difference. The tiniest insects are sipped, the larger ones 
 are taken down with much more of a swirl. The rise to the 
 blue-winged olive at night (and by day, too) is indicated 
 by quite a large kidney-shaped whorl; and the large dark 
 olive of spring and late autumn is taken in a similar way. 
 The degree of eagerness of the fish also has an effect on the 
 size of the swirl he makes in taking. The fondness of the 
 trout for the iron-blue dun, for instance, leads him to take 
 it with an agitation which betrays him to the observant 
 angler as feeding on the iron-blue dun or its nymph, 
 though no iron-blue dun may have been observed on the 
 surface or in the air. Naturally, too, the trout makes less 
 of a ring when he can be confident of securing his fly than 
 when he has to hurry to secure it ere it be whipped off the 
 water by wind or its natural tendency to take flight. 
 
 Where duns are floating in eddies one often sees trout 
 sailing gently under and sipping them softly. Occasion- 
 ally in these positions one sees a succession of head-and- 
 tail rises — first the neb appears and descends, then the 
 back fin, and then the upper portion of the tail fin. It is 
 my belief that this in general indicates that the trout is 
 taking duns which through accident or defective hatching 
 are lying spent or on their sides on the surface. The 
 same type of rise in the open stream may generally, 
 especially in the morning, before the dun hatch, and in 
 the evening, be taken to indicate that the trout are taking 
 spent spinners. In the eddies and over weed-beds, how- 
 ever, when no fly is visible on the surface, it may mean 
 that the trout is taking nymphs, just in the film of the 
 surface, about to hatch, or, it may be, swarming for refuge 
 
ASSORTED RISES 63 
 
 in eddies after a weed-cutting; and these may be nymphs 
 of duns or gnats. In these circumstances nymphs seem 
 to be taken with a quiet deliberation very different from 
 the swashing eagerness with which the bulger swirls to 
 meet his under-water prey. Very often, however, in 
 streams the trout will be nymphing for hours together with 
 just the same quiet deliberation and with just as little 
 excitement as when taking floating duns; and, as on these 
 occasions there is no head-and-tail rise, the angler is usually 
 immensely puzzled to make out on what they are feeding. 
 The writer does not profess to have worked out any reason 
 why nymphs should be taken on one occasion with the 
 head-and-tail rise and on another with an action apparently 
 differing in no appreciable respect from the ordinary rise 
 to floating duns. The nearest thing to a clue he has been 
 able to observe is that while spent spinners are taken with 
 the head-and-tail rise, floating upwinged spinners are 
 absorbed, especially if small, with a soft suck which spreads 
 a ring so thin and creating so little disturbance as to be 
 scarcely visible in the dusk or the moonlight, while within 
 its circle the water looks like a little pool of fine creaming 
 lines whorling towards a pinhead hole in its centre. Again, 
 occasionally on a windy day one sees a head-and-tail rise 
 in quite rough water. The inclination therefore is to 
 suspect that the trout is taking an insect blown over or 
 caught by the waves with just the action with which he 
 takes a spent spinner or a drowned dun in the eddies, 
 and to deduce that the head-and-tail rise is to a quarry at 
 the surface with no chance of escape, and to make the 
 further deduction that, when nymphs are being taken thus, 
 they are in some stage or condition where they have no 
 chance of escape, and that where they are taken with what 
 looks like an ordinary rise they are capable of some, but 
 not a great, degree of activity, and may be below the film 
 
64 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 of the surface. Then there is, of course, bulging properly 
 so called, where the fish move to and fro to intercept the 
 nymphs carried down by the current. Here in general 
 the indication of the rise is the swirl of the fish as it turns 
 after capturing its prey. There is also the rise to hatching 
 caddis, such as the grannom — having an appearance much 
 like bulging; the rise to the running sedge — something of 
 a slash; the rise to tiny midges and curses, which may be 
 an example of the ordinary rise to surface food if the 
 insect be perfect, or of subaqueous taking if the insect be 
 yet unhatched. 
 
 Of the rises of cruising trout in still or extremely slow 
 water it is not necessary to add anything, except to say 
 that at times they partake of the character of the slash 
 and at times of the sip. 
 
 Of the rise to snails spoken of by Mr. Halford in one of 
 his works, the present writer has had no experience. 
 
 Summarizing briefly the types of rise we appear to have 
 at least the following: 
 
 Over-Surface Rises. 
 
 Ordinary rise to floating dun or upwinged spinner and 
 its variants, namely: 
 
 Big rise with kidney-shaped double whorl to large 
 floating dun (such as blue- winged olive or its spinner) . 
 
 Sucking rise to medium-sized floating flies. 
 
 Sipping rise to smallest floating duns, spinners, and 
 midges, and 
 
 The slash — most commonly to running sedge, or to flies 
 on slow water. 
 
 In addition to which there is the plunge where an eager 
 fish comes almost entirely out of water and takes the fly 
 either as he leaves the water or as his head re-enters. 
 
"FAUSSE MONTEE" 65 
 
 On the Surface or Flush Rises. 
 
 Head-and-tail rises to wet duns or spent spinners or 
 nymphs of duns or gnats suspended inert in the 
 surface film. 
 
 Subaqueous Rises. 
 
 Bulging to nymphs. 
 
 Bulging to hatching caddis flies, such as the grannom. 
 
 Nymphing in eddies ) 
 
 Nymphing in streams J to moMe ^P^ 
 
 There are doubtless other types which a more observant 
 eye would be able to distinguish, and there must be many 
 among the large body of fishers with the fly who are well 
 qualified to indicate them. 
 
 V 
 
 " FAUSSE MONTEE " 
 
 There is one form of rise which I have not dealt with, 
 to which, indeed, it is difficult to give precise designation. 
 Speaking generally, when one sees the surface broken one 
 says, " There is a rise," and one means that the surface 
 is broken by the emerging or almost emerging neb of a 
 trout. But the rise I am here speaking of is quite other 
 than that. True, there is a boil on the surface, but it is 
 not an indication that the trout is there. On the contrary, 
 it is an indication that he is gone. And, if he has taken 
 the fly, any hope of hooking him that is based on striking 
 when the boil is seen is likely to be vain. It will be too 
 late, probably much too late. This form of rise is much 
 commoner in fast, fairly deep water than in water that 
 is slow or smooth. And when the angler finds that he is 
 
 9 
 
66 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 apparently getting, and certainly missing, rise after rise, 
 he may suspect that what he is really getting is this kind 
 of false rise, and he should, if possible, seek a position 
 where the light falls so as to enable him to see through 
 the surface the turn of the fish under water, and strike at 
 that instead of at the following surface indication. 
 
 How fallacious that indication can be I saw very clearly 
 one sunny June morning a few years back on the Kennet. 
 I had put my rod together for a day's May-fly fishing on 
 a beautiful length of that river, and I was waiting on a 
 bridge above which a lovely clear shallow deepened and 
 narrowed towards the arch. In the eye of the stream — a 
 nice eighteen or twenty yard cast upstream — a yellow trout 
 of near two pounds, and obviously in prime condition, 
 lay rather deep, yet not in that glued-to-the-bottom way 
 which rendered it hopeless to attempt to get him. There 
 was, in fact, an air of suppressed energy and eagerness 
 about him which tempted me to stretch over him the 
 summer duck straddlebug which was ready attached to 
 my cast. The fly lit beyond him, but a yard or more too 
 much to the left. But he came at it with a flash, took 
 a scare, turned, and was gone — three or more yards to the 
 right of his original position; and as he came into the 
 straight, all that way away, a huge boil on the surface 
 surrounded and took under my fly. It was the effect of 
 the vigorous slash he made in his turn away from the fly 
 that only materialized on the surface when the trout was 
 well away from it. It was obviously no good to strike, 
 but if the light conditions had not enabled me to see the 
 whole process quite clearly, I might have struck under the 
 impression that I had had a fine rise, and have gone in the 
 belief that the fish had risen " short," or that I had mis- 
 timed my stroke — and have found any explanation but 
 the true one. 
 
THE MOMENT 67 
 
 I think it will often prove that when fish are rising what 
 is called short, whether they take the submerged fly or 
 baulk at it, as did the trout in the incident described above, 
 what is seen is no true rise in which the fly is taken, but 
 the belated after-effect of the trout's turn away under 
 water coming to the surface. This turn may vary enor- 
 mously in its degree of violence, and the gentler it is the 
 better the angler's hope that the fly has been taken and 
 that he may pull in his iron. 
 
 VI 
 
 THE MOMENT 
 
 As Captain Cuttle is recorded to have remarked, " The 
 point of these observations lies in the application of them." 
 
 I propose, therefore, to consider the rise at the artificial 
 fly, and to examine its indications as guides to the angler 
 telling him when to strike. 
 
 There is, of course, no mystery about the taking of the 
 floating fly. Provided the angler is certain that it is his 
 fly that is taken, and not a natural fly an inch or more 
 away, he has only to strike more or less rapidly according 
 to the size of his fish. Matters are often nearly as simple 
 for the wet-fly fisherman if the trout comes up to his fly 
 with a swirl, but he has to remember that if his fly be 
 well sunk he must be very quick or he may be too late, for 
 the swirl is often (as shown above) an indication not that 
 the trout is there, but that he is gone. That is why in a 
 rough river a wet fly fished upstream should be fished on 
 a short line with most of it out of water, so that the trout 
 turning down may if possible be felt, or at any rate that 
 there may be no loss of time in pulling home when the 
 flash of the turn is observed. But often the trout takes so 
 
68 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 far below the surface, or with so little motion, that there 
 is no swirl or break on the surface to indicate that he has 
 taken. Then the opportunity may be missed unless some 
 other hint be noted by the watchful angler. On chalk 
 streams or smooth placid streams such indications may be 
 found in the draw of the partially floating gut, in the flash 
 of the turn (but this is comparatively rarely seen), or in 
 the appearance of a faint hump on the surface, often 
 accompanied by a tiny central eddy caused by the suction 
 with which the trout has drawn in the fly. 
 
 Sometimes the entire process can be seen, though the 
 fly be invisible, and then the angler will be wise if he 
 tightens at the least motion of the fish to left or right, or 
 at the opening and closing of his mouth, or, if the cast has 
 fallen wide, then at the moment the fish is seen to turn 
 back. It is surprising how often he will be found to have 
 collected the fly. I have seen a trout let an artificial fly 
 of the nymph type go past him, turn and follow it for 
 several yards, and, striking as he turned upstream again, 
 have found him fast. 
 
PART V 
 
 WHAT 
 
 FLIES AS FOOD 
 
 A general survey of the circumstances, stages, and con- 
 ditions in which the insects which serve the trout as food 
 may be preferably simulated or represented may not be 
 amiss. 
 
 The larvae of the Ephemeridae have been classed as 
 digging larvae (of which the May fly larva is an example), 
 flat larvae (of which the larva of the March brown, clinging 
 to the bottom and hiding under stones, is the most obvious), 
 swimming larvae, and crawling larvae. 
 
 The digging larvae are hidden from the trout until as 
 nymphs they crawl up into the weeds and let themselves go 
 into the current preparatory to hatching out as winged 
 flies. This, then, is the only subaqueous stage in which 
 they are exposed to the trout and can legitimately be 
 simulated or suggested by the fly-fisherman. In the 
 winged stages they are surface flies either floating with 
 upright wings or flat with wings outspread, damaged, or 
 spent or dipping on the surface if egg-laying. 
 
 The flat larvae, of which the March brown is the most 
 prominent example, can seldom in normal times be seen 
 by the trout, since they hide under stones and seldom 
 venture out till the time comes for their ascent to the 
 surface to hatch out. Probably when there is a spate 
 
 69 
 
70 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 which tumbles over the stones, these larvae are exposed 
 and carried down-stream, and the trout get an unwonted 
 good chance at them, so that they are not as unknown 
 to the fish as the digging larvae. At the time of ascent 
 to the surface for hatching the trout get their real chance 
 at them, and it is in this subaqueous stage, rather than 
 in the stage of subimagines, that the fish feed on them 
 most ravenously. The hatches occur in flushes, and it 
 probably pays the fish better to slash the ascending nymph 
 (which they can see farther than they can see the floating 
 subimago) than to await the subimago passing almost 
 vertically overhead. 
 
 The stages, therefore, in which the Ephemeridae which 
 have flat larvae are legitimately to be imitated are the 
 ascending nymphal stage and the winged stages, either 
 floating or flush with the surface. 
 
 The swimming larvae are obviously much more familiar 
 to the trout. Living in vegetation or roaming over stones 
 and gravel they are easily routed out by the trout. A 
 familiar example of this is to be seen when the trout are 
 tailing. Then larvae, nymphs and shrimps are bustled out 
 of the weeds, and are captured in the open by the fish. 
 Then, again, at the period of ascent to hatch, these nymphs 
 are exposed in mid-water and near the surface, and are 
 swung down by the current to the waiting fish. An imita- 
 tion nymph or larva will at times take a tailing trout, but, 
 generally speaking, the stage in which an imitation has 
 its legitimate chance of success is at the time of ascent, or 
 any other time (such as weed-cutting) when the larvae 
 or nymphs are in open water exposed to the fish. The 
 wriggling action of its swimming cannot, of course, be 
 reproduced in the artificial fly, but when the swimming 
 larva, like the other larvae, comes up to hatch it is prac- 
 tically quiescent. 
 
FLIES AS FOOD 71 
 
 The crawling larvae have a way of hiding snuggled 
 under a thin layer of sand or weed, so as to be practically 
 invisible. It follows that they must frequent quiet waters. 
 Yet when spates occur they are no doubt washed out of their 
 shelters and become a prey to the trout. They too, again, 
 have an exposed stage when they ascend to hatch out as 
 winged flies; and it is in these exposed stages that the 
 imitation nymph or larva has its proper chance of success. 
 Obviously the nymphs or larvae cannot be imitated either 
 on the bottom or in the weeds. 
 
 The winged insect will be taken hatching or hatched, 
 floating cocked, or caught and disabled, and again in the 
 spinner stage, floating cocked, or disabled, or spent, or, 
 again, dipping to lay her eggs. 
 
 There are said to be cases where the female spinner 
 " creeps down into the water (enclosed within a film of air 
 with her wings collapsed so as to overlie the abdomen, and 
 with her setae closed together) to lay her eggs upon the 
 underside of stones." I have never seen such a happening, 
 but it is quoted from no less an authority than the Rev. 
 A. E. Eaton, and must unquestionably be in accordance 
 with the facts. 
 
 The net result, therefore, as regards the Ephemeridae 
 is that effective representation of them for fly-fishing 
 purposes is as larvae or nymphs, when in open water, and 
 in the winged stages. 
 
 Then there is the willow-fly or stone-fly series (Perlidae), 
 which in the subaqueous stages live on the bottom among 
 stones; and though in those stages they are no doubt 
 avidly taken by the trout when the trout can get at them, 
 they do not in those stages lend themselves to representa- 
 tion on a fly hook, and they are seldom in mid-water. 
 They can, therefore, only be usefully simulated in the 
 perfect or winged form. 
 
72 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 There are also the caddis or case flies (Phryganidse), which 
 again, with the exception of the grannom, do not lend 
 themselves to imitation, representation, or suggestion 
 otherwise than in the perfect or winged form. 
 
 The grub crawling on the bottom in its sheath of stones 
 or sticks or sand is no doubt frequently eaten by the trout, 
 but does not, either in form or habitat, lend itself to repre- 
 sentation by the fly dresser. It might be that occasionally 
 the ascending pupa about to hatch into the perfect fly 
 could be approximately reproduced. Indeed, the gran- 
 nom is more often taken by the trout when ascending 
 to hatch out than as a perfect fly, and a brown partridge 
 hackle with a green silk or wool body is readily accepted 
 as a substitute, but the ascending pupae of other case flies 
 are not so easy to reproduce. 
 
 There is the alder, sometimes confused with a case fly, 
 which spends its larval stage in the mud, crawls ashore 
 and pupates in the earth; and, though it frequents the 
 water-side, it only drops on the water, much in the same 
 way as a land fly, as a casualty. In the larval form, 
 however, it would not be badly represented by a Honey- 
 dun Bumble dressed with a palish Tup's Indispensable 
 body; and I once had a fly, so dressed, torn to pieces by 
 eager May trout in Germany. 
 
 There are also the gnats which breed freely in stagnant 
 or slow water, and are taken in the subaqueous as well as 
 the perfect and winged stage, though seldom imitated by 
 anglers in the subaqueous stages. Finally, there are 
 various small midges and beetles. 
 
 The land flies which get on to the water are less im- 
 portant. They are all in the nature of casualties, and 
 comprise ants (of which trout are inordinately fond), 
 sundry flies of the house-fly and blow-fly type, the oak fly 
 or downlooker, and sundry crane flies, etc. 
 
FLIES AS FOOD 73 
 
 I do not purpose to go into the entomology of the subject, 
 since that has been adequately dealt with elsewhere. 
 
 It follows, however, that the Ephemeridae, the gnats and 
 some beetles, and possibly the alder, are the only flies which 
 have subaqueous stages calling for representation by the 
 fly dresser. The perfect stages of all the classes of insects 
 named may be dressed to be fished either dry or semi- 
 submerged, or even, so foolish at times is our quarry, 
 definitely submerged. 
 
 I think, however, it should be the ideal of the sportsman 
 angler to take his trout, where he can do so, by means of 
 imitations, representations, or suggestions of its natural 
 food presented in the conditions in which the trout is 
 feeding on it. 
 
 It is very usual to find writers declaring that to attempt 
 to represent or suggest the natural fly with sufficient 
 exactness to deceive the fish is absurd, and that one fly 
 will do as well as another, provided the size and something 
 of the modesty of nature be observed. I can only say 
 that thirty-seven years of fishing of chalk streams have 
 convinced me that this is not true of them, and that the 
 trout will, more frequently than not, refuse any but one 
 pattern which for the time being appears to them (though 
 it is not always obvious to the angler why it does so) to be 
 the natural fly on which for the moment they are feeding. 
 For instance, it is not very clear why, when the blue- 
 winged olive is rising at night, and the trout are taking 
 it on the surface, a large Orange Quill on a No. 1 or even 
 a No. 2 hook is accepted readily by them, but a large Red 
 Quill of the same size, dyed or undyed, will either be utterly 
 ignored or will put down the trout. The only difference 
 is the colour of the quill. Other instances of unlike 
 likenesses being taken are the taking of the Blue Quill 
 when the pale watery dun is on, the Gold-ribbed Hare's 
 
 10 
 
74 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 ear when the large spring medium olive dun is hatching, 
 and the Whirling Blue dun for the big autumn olive. 
 
 Often, of course, the insistence of the fish is upon closer 
 likenesses. Yet it is my constant experience that on such 
 waters a minute variation makes the difference between 
 failure and success. 
 
 For instance, in July, 1919, the July dun was coming up 
 freely on the Itchen, and I was introducing a guest to the 
 water. He put up a fly which to all appearance was a 
 close imitation. Dark starling wings, yellow silk body 
 ribbed with fine gold wire, and greenish-yellow olive hackle 
 and whisk. He was an excellent fisherman, and he spent 
 a full quarter of an hour over a vigorous trout, never putting 
 him down or scaring him. Out of my experience I had 
 made him tender of a pattern of July dun, which differed 
 from his only in having the body silk clothed with pale 
 blue heron herl, dyed the same colour as the silk, a dirty 
 greenish-yellow olive, but he had refused with the remark 
 that his fly was " near enough." After a while he said to 
 me: " Well, give him a chance at your fly, since you think 
 it better." The first time my fly covered the trout he 
 had it, and my friend netted out a nice two pound six 
 ounce trout. He then accepted another fly similarly tied, 
 and putting it on got the next two fish he tried directly 
 he covered them. 
 
 I have had too many similar experiences to have any 
 doubt about the matter. 
 
 Of course, the Itchen is a river which breeds and main- 
 tains a large quantity of fly-food. In rough rivers where 
 fly food is scarce I can understand that the fish will often 
 rise at any fly or any suggestion of a fly which comes over 
 them. But even there, when there is a rise or fall of an 
 acceptable species of fly, I have known occasions when the 
 trout refused everything but a fairly satisfactory repre- 
 
FLY DRESSING AS AN ART 75 
 
 sentation of that fly. For instance, on the Coquet one 
 afternoon, seeing that there was a heavy fall of small 
 spinners, I put on a solitary fly which I had dressed the 
 previous day to imitate the same spinner, and I caught 
 no less than eight-and-thirty trout with it, while a much 
 more experienced rough-water fisherman, fishing with me 
 on the other side of the same water and using three or four 
 flies, one of them a wool-bodied Red spinner, but not true 
 to shade, took three trout only. I am therefore convinced 
 that what I call " appropriate representation " rather than 
 exact imitation is seldom thrown away. 
 
 Every rule has its exception, and the exception is the 
 occasion when the hatch or fall of natural fly is so copious 
 that unless your fly has the luck to fall so near to the trout 
 as to be the absolute next to be taken it is in competition 
 with too many natural flies to invite selection. On such 
 an occasion there should be something special about your 
 fly to attract the trout's attention from the stream of 
 natural insects. 
 
 II 
 
 FLY DRESSING AS AN ART 
 
 I imagine that no art has ever been learned from books ; 
 fly dressing is no exception. As a mere mechanical art it can 
 be learned in the workshop or at the fly-dressing table. 
 There, from teaching and example, the student may acquire 
 with practice a certain knack and deftness. But when 
 he has acquired these it is far too soon to imagine himself 
 a master of the art. 
 
 Many writers have attempted to teach it in their books 
 by verbal description and by illustration, but apart from 
 the fact that most of them leave unexplained a whole series 
 
76 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 of details of each process, which seem to them from habit 
 to be so simple and obvious as not to require explanation, 
 there seem to be none who go to the real root of the matter, 
 and tell the student what he is or should be aiming at 
 when he sets out to dress an artificial fly. In saying this 
 I have not forgotten Cutcliffe and his " Trout Fishing in 
 Rapid Streams." In that work, one of the soundest and 
 cleverest in the whole range of fly-dressing literature, 
 the author does propound, in language which lacks nothing 
 in clearness and sincerity, a system of dressing and fishing 
 the artificial fly as a lure. But that is only one, and far 
 from the most important aspect of fly dressing and fly 
 fishing; and when he deals with fly dressing from the 
 imitative, representative, or suggestive side, he does so 
 in a very perfunctory manner ; for, for the streams of Devon 
 to which his fishing was confined, that was not a side of 
 the subject to which he attached much importance. 
 
 Most, if not all, of the other writers who have dealt with 
 the subject have dealt with it locally and almost entirely 
 as a mechanical art. While saying this (and I hope I am 
 doing no author an injustice) I should like to make it clear 
 that I have never read one of them and attempted the 
 method he describes without learning something from 
 him, and no method portrayed has proved entirely without 
 merit. 
 
 Still, the writer has yet to come who will treat the art of 
 trout-fly dressing as a whole, and will make clear to the 
 learner the aims, objects, and advantages of the varying 
 styles and methods adapted to varying conditions of brook, 
 stream, river, and lake, and the processes by which they 
 can be achieved. 
 
 The first stage must, I suggest, be the adoption of a 
 clear terminology as an aid to clear thinking. For in- 
 stance, most of the writers above referred to tell us that 
 
IMITATION, REPRESENTATION, SUGGESTION 77 
 
 the natural fly must be " imitated " — and then they are 
 quite likely to teach you how to dress a straddlebug or 
 a palmer — and it is more than probable that in most cases 
 by imitation they mean " representation " or " suggestion." 
 Even those distinctions are insufficient. Imitation may 
 mean imitation of life, of activity, of colour, and size. It 
 may be obtained by transmitted or reflected light where the 
 colour of the natural fly is reflected or transmitted. And 
 these things are equally true of the artificial fly that is a 
 representation or a suggestion of the natural fly. 
 
 Ill 
 
 IMITATION, REPRESENTATION, SUGGESTION 
 
 It is a common and a just observation that the best 
 artificial fly bears but a poor resemblance to the natural fly 
 which it is supposed to stand for. But, for all that, arti- 
 ficial flies dressed to imitate, to represent, or to suggest 
 natural flies do take trout, and take them in such conditions 
 that no unprejudiced angler can doubt that they take 
 them for their natural prototypes. This suggests defective 
 vision on the part of the trout, and this question of vision 
 and the nature and extent of the defect are examined else- 
 where. At this stage it is sufficient to indicate the distinc- 
 tion to be drawn between artificial flies which are imita- 
 tions, representations, and suggestions respectively of the 
 natural insect. 
 
 Where, as for instance in the case of the Olive Quill 
 or the Iron-blue dun, a determined effort is made to re- 
 produce the natural insect in colour, shape, and attitude, 
 the artificial fly may be called an imitation. It is of little 
 consequence whether the effect be got by reflected or 
 transmitted light. A less ambitious effort may be called 
 
78 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 a representation, while a pattern so sketchy as just to 
 give the effect of a tumbled specimen (as, for instance, a 
 dotterel hackle, or light snipe and yellow for a pale watery 
 dun), may be called a suggestion. 
 
 Every artificial trout fly is necessarily a compromise. 
 It has to carry a hook ; to float or to sink ; to be durable ; 
 to be attractive: 
 
 (a) by appealing to hunger or appetite ; or 
 
 (b) by exciting curiosity, rage, rapacity, pugnacity, or 
 jealousy. 
 
 It appeals to hunger or appetite by suggesting an insect 
 either living, or newly drowned, or otherwise dead, in one 
 of its aerial or subaqueous stages, or a shrimp, or (as Dr. 
 Mottram will have it) a small fish. 
 
 Such insects may be suggested by shape; by colour; by 
 carriage; by shape and colour; by action; by action and 
 shape; by carriage and shape; by action and colour; by 
 action, shape, and colour; or by carriage, shape, and colour. 
 
 The shape cannot be precise because of the hook, and 
 because of the action of the water on feathers, and because, 
 in the case of a floating fly, of the refractive operation of 
 light passing from air into water. 
 
 The colour may be suggested by translucency (or trans- 
 mission), by reflection, or by both. 
 
 Action may be suggested by motion in or on the water, 
 or by position on the surface, and by such a use of hackle 
 as to suggest a buzzing action. 
 
 The imitation may be Impressionist, Cubist, Futurist, 
 Post-Impressionist, Pre-Raphaelite, or caricature. The 
 commonest is caricature. It therefore catches most fish. 
 
STYLES OF FLY DRESSING 79 
 
 IV 
 
 STYLES OF FLY DRESSING 
 
 The angler who has fished with the fly in different parts 
 of the country cannot fail to have noted the extraordinarily 
 differing ways in which the same natural fly is imitated, 
 represented, or suggested in different parts of the country 
 and for different rivers and streams. 
 
 As nothing of any permanence is without reason, it must 
 be inferred that these differences correspond to differences 
 in the conditions under which fly fishing is pursued in 
 streams of different classes. 
 
 In Plate I. I have reproduced a series of patterns of 
 the same fly — the large dark spring olive or blue dun — 
 dressed according to methods prevailing in different parts. 
 
 Fig. 1 represents an attempt at what is styled, for lack 
 of a better term, "exact imitation." It purports to represent 
 the natural fly sitting up cocked on the water in the atti- 
 tude in which it may commonly be seen on the clear chalk 
 streams of the South. It has wings (double dressed) and 
 legs, body and tails; and the colours of the different parts 
 purport to correspond with those of the natural fly. It is 
 fished in conditions in which, by reason of the clearness and 
 slow pace of the water, the trout has time for a good look 
 at the fly ere it takes it. Fig. la is a Derbyshire dressing 
 from the hands of Mr. C. A. Hassam, of the Fly Fishers' 
 Club — than whom no more exquisite artist in trout flies, 
 whether amateur or professional, has ever come within my 
 ken. The wings are single dressed and the whole fly a 
 model of lightness and delicacy. 
 
 Fig. 2 represents the same fly as dressed for the tumbling 
 Yorkshire and North-Country brooks and rivers. It is 
 dressed with a fur body, which, when wet, is remarkably 
 
80 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 transparent and lets through, while it darkens and accen- 
 tuates, the olive colouring of the waxed silk with which 
 the fly is tied, and the tumbled hackle from the waterhen 
 (moorhen) suggests the tumbled, dilapidated state in which 
 a fly whose wings have been caught by the current might 
 be whirled down-stream in such waters. If used as a 
 dropper, fished upstream and across, this type of pattern 
 with its mobile wings may well constitute an effective 
 suggestion of a fly struggling with its difficulties upon the 
 surface. All the Yorkshire and North of England patterns 
 seem to be dressed upon this theory. Both these types 
 of fly are meant to be fished upstream, or up and across. 
 Fig. 3 is a dressing from the Usk. The Usk is a broad, 
 solid river, where, I imagine, the bulk of the fishing is to 
 be done by casting across stream. Here the theory appears 
 to be that the artificial fly is a sketch. Note the slight 
 shred of wing, the slim body, the slight but active hackle. 
 Fig. 4 is a dressing of the fly intended to be fished down- 
 stream, or rather across and down, in such solid streams 
 as the Teme. It has, therefore, what is described as a 
 good entry; that is to say, a shape which is calculated 
 to create the least unnatural disturbance through its 
 breasting the current or swinging across it. It is to stand 
 hard wear, so the wings are rolled into a single solid pad. 
 
 Fig. 5 is a single-winged pattern — i.e., a pattern dressed 
 with only one thickness of wing fibre to represent each 
 wing of the natural fly 1 — and in a variety of quality it is 
 perhaps the commonest and least rational of all the types 
 of fly dressing. Fig. 6 is a Devonshire pattern, dressed with 
 sharp, bright, dancing hackles, probably intended to suggest 
 a struggling nymph rather than the hatched winged fly. 
 
 Fig. 7 is a rolled-winged pattern with upright wings 
 akin to the Greenwell's Glory. It is one of the few winged 
 patterns of the Northern English counties and the South 
 
STYLES OF FLY DRESSING 81 
 
 of Scotland, and its upright split wings will either enable 
 it to go down- stream almost afloat like the natural fly, 
 or, if it be drawn under, it will be whirled about in a way 
 to suggest considerable life and activity. It is suitable 
 for upstream fishing — even in chalk streams. 
 
 Fig. 8 is a type of fly affected by the fly fishers of the 
 Clyde and its tributaries. It is extremely sketchy, but 
 as I have never fished, or even seen, the waters where it is 
 used I am unable to do more than guess at the theory of 
 its operation. It appears somewhat akin to the Tweed type. 
 
 Even sketchier is the type of pattern illustrated in 
 Fig. 9, but I have known Scottish burn fishers fill bumping 
 creels with just such simple patterns busked before setting 
 out with a mere wisp of feather for wing, a tiny hen 
 hackle pulled from a fowl caught for the purpose, a few 
 inches of tying silk, and perhaps at times a tiny pinch of 
 wool from coat or cap for the body. 
 
 Then there are Stewart's patterns (illustrated in " The 
 Practical Angler"). Of these the winged flies are much 
 like the Teme flies, No. 4, but, fished upstream and across 
 as droppers, are drawn down by the current ahead of the 
 gut cast head upstream, while the hackled type are just 
 soft hackled palmers which, while of the sober colours of 
 the water insects, must really attract by reason of the 
 mobility of the hackle fibres presenting an appearance of 
 a struggling creature. 
 
 All these methods have their merits and all deserve 
 study ; for the fly fisherman who is also a fly dresser can 
 be none the worse for being able to adapt his methods to 
 the type of water he is fishing or going to fish in. 
 
 The number of ways in which flies can be tied is in- 
 credible. There are hardly two books which lay down 
 identical methods unless one is a crib from the other. 
 And of all the methods in which I have experimented, 
 
 1 1 
 
82 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 from Walton downwards, I have never come across one 
 which had nothing to recommend it, and I should be glad 
 to be master of them all. 
 
 V 
 
 KICK 
 
 This is a quality which every hackled wet fly, for use in 
 rough water, should invariably have. Without it, it is a dead 
 thing; with it, it is alive and struggling; and the fly which 
 is alive and struggling has a fascination for the trout which 
 no dead thing has. How is this quality to be attained ? 
 It is a very simple matter. Finish behind the hackle. 
 
 Suppose you are tying an Orange Partridge. You have 
 whipped on the gut, tied in the floss, whipped to the 
 shoulder, wound on the orange floss, whipped down the 
 end, cut away the waste. You then take your brown 
 partridge hackle, and placing it face downwards on top 
 of the hook, with the stump towards the bend, you whip 
 it down with two turns towards the head ; then, whipping 
 over the hook and back to the feather, you form the head. 
 Then you take two turns over the butt, and, taking the 
 centre of the hackle in your pliers, you wind at most two 
 turns of the hackle and secure the end with one turn of 
 the silk. Then you pull all the fibres forward over the 
 head, and finish with a whip-finish tight up behind the 
 hackle, and break off the waste. You then soak the whip- 
 finish with celluloid varnish (celluloid dissolved in amyl 
 acetate or acetone), push back the hackle over the bend 
 and varnish the head, and your fly is complete. The 
 turns of silk behind the hackle makes each fibre sit up 
 and stand out, and the fly has kick, and it will improve 
 rather than deteriorate with use. Hackles with good 
 natural resilience are, of course, essential. 
 
EX MORTUA MANU 83 
 
 VI 
 
 EX MORTUA MANU 
 
 For centuries, more than most anglers suspect, we have 
 in the matter of fly dressing been in bondage to the past. 
 The dead hand has been heavy on us. To the newcomer 
 to fly dressing the taking of a trout with the artificial 
 fly seems such a miracle that he is apt to attribute some 
 special virtue to the confection of fur and feather which 
 has done the feat, and he falls to studying the fathers of 
 fly dressing either directly from their works or second-hand 
 through modern pundits, or the experts who derive their 
 knowledge and experience either from the same sources 
 or from the experts before them similarly instructed. 
 Thus the body of angling lore on the subject of artificial 
 flies is almost entirely empirical and traditional, and as 
 every new blunder is carefully enshrined in work after 
 work, it is tainted with every kind of long-perpetuated 
 error and prejudice, and is distant indeed from the 
 natural sources from which it should have directly sprung. 
 
 I have described the trout as " rather a stupid person," 
 and, with an irony more biting than I guessed at the time 
 I wrote, I thanked the powers that had made him so, for 
 otherwise man would be unable to catch him with the fly. 
 I did not at the time mean that angler man was something 
 more than " rather a stupid person," but I say now that 
 if the trout took as long to learn the things that belong 
 to his taking as angler man has done, the word " rather " 
 would be an entirely inadequate qualification for the 
 opprobrious adjective. I speak for myself as for the rest 
 of my craft, from Dame Juliana to the present day. Our 
 faculty for misobserving and for misapprehending the most 
 obvious evidence of our senses would put the most stupid 
 
84 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 trout to shame. The most caustic phrases of " A Scottish 
 Fly fisher " would be quite too weak to convey any idea of 
 the wrong-headed density of the whole string of writers 
 of fly fishing from A to Z, not excluding the present scribe. 
 From the word " go " fly dressers have built their flies 
 upon the assumption that the winged fly, as seen in the 
 air, is the food of the trout. For generations anglers have 
 fished these winged flies under the surface, because they 
 found the trout would take them there, and it was diffi- 
 cult to make them float. All sorts of ingenious and fanci- 
 ful theories were conceived to account for the taking 
 of winged flies under water. It took a peasant, whose 
 entire education cost, if his preface may be believed, no 
 more than thirty shillings,* to put first on record — though 
 not without some natural errors of observation — that the 
 trout takes the insect at the bottom, and as it ascends to 
 the surface, as well as on the surface, but even he did 
 not advocate imitating it in the subaqueous stages. It 
 took nearly fifty years more to bring us our " Detached 
 Badger," with his autopsies proving that the vast bulk of 
 the food of the trout was subaqueous; that, as he puts 
 it somewhere (I quote from memory), the under- water 
 feeding is the beef and mutton, the floating fly is caviare to 
 the trout, and he authoritatively squelched in Chapter VII. 
 of " Dry-Fly Fishing " the idea that larvae or nymphs 
 could be successfully imitated. Hence his demonstration 
 that chalk-stream fish could only be taken with caviare. 
 It took twenty years more to bring me to the definite 
 conclusion that the wet fly had a big future on chalk 
 streams. And it took the droughty summer of 19 n (with 
 scarce a natural dun or spinner on the surface day by 
 day, yet with trout after trout breaking the surface as it 
 fed in all respects as if it were taking floaters, and every 
 
 * John Younger, "River Angling," 1840. 
 
EX MORTUA MANU 85 
 
 trout's gullet containing nymphs and larvae only) to lead 
 me to experiment systematically with nymphs really 
 imitating the natural insect, and to prove that, notwith- 
 standing the weight of authority to the contrary, the arti- 
 ficial nymph will kill, and kill well, when the trout are 
 taking natural nymphs, or even merely not exclusively 
 occupied with surface food. 
 
 Now to those who prefer to catch their trout with caviare 
 only, I have nothing to say except that it restricts their 
 chances, and it seems a dull game compared with that of 
 catching them by simulation of what they are feeding on 
 at the time. It is, however, at least a comprehensible 
 theory, like barring the anchor stroke in billiard matches. 
 But to anglers on wet-fly rivers, and to those chalk-stream 
 anglers not exclusively devoted to caviare, I would ask: 
 Has not the time come when the under-water fly should be 
 habitually presented not only under water like a nymph, 
 but as an effective imitation of a nymph? I am 
 aware that a book called " Fly Fishing: Some New Arts and 
 Mysteries" (Dr. J. C. Mottram) has set out an interesting 
 method of nymph fishing. I do not wish to be under- 
 stood as disparaging his flies or his methods in any way, 
 as I have never tried them. In theory they seem to me 
 to have the defects of rigidity, density, and dulness of 
 colouring, and a tendency to fall heavily when cast, by 
 reason of absence of hackle. Moreover, they are used 
 dragging. In practice these matters may be of no con- 
 sequence. My own very encouraging experiments have 
 in the main been made with dubbed bodies containing 
 more or less bright seal's fur ribbed with gold wire or silver 
 wire (thus being full of light), and with just enough short 
 soft hackle to help to break the fall of the hook on the 
 water. But whatever method of dressing is adopted, I, 
 at least, urge the systematic and general working out of 
 
86 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 a logical system of imitating the natural insect in its natural 
 surroundings. This does not eliminate the winged fly 
 altogether. It can be fished dry or when the trout are 
 taking the natural fly on the surface, though even then I 
 incline to think that the nymph will frequently be pre- 
 ferred. A new Ronalds is called for to classify and illus- 
 trate the successive series of nymphs and larvae for the 
 benefit of anglers. Let him stand forth ! 
 
 But even without our nymphal Ronalds let us try and 
 see what can be done by the application of the sheer light 
 of common sense. Let us suppose that all the lore of 
 centuries is cancelled out, and the angler sitting down to 
 construct, without reference to the past, a system of trout- 
 fly dressing. What would he evolve ? 
 
 He would first, I conceive, ascertain what appetites or 
 emotions lead a trout to take the artificial fly, and he 
 would conclude that they were (i) hunger, (2) caprice or 
 wantonness, (3) curiosity, and (4) tyranny or rapacity. 
 For the purpose of exciting caprice, curiosity, or rapacity, 
 he would evolve the fancy fly, and that might not be 
 unlike some of the more conspicuous artificial flies of the 
 present day, either brightly coloured or active in motion 
 of its parts, or both. For the representations of insects 
 appealing to hunger, and occasionally to caprice or wanton- 
 ness, he would have to make a first-hand study of the food 
 of the trout when freshly taken. He would net a series 
 of trout at the middle or end of a rise, and analyze the 
 insect contents of their stomachs. If, then, he found — as 
 he would find — that 95 per cent, of the Ephemeridae there 
 to be found had been intercepted before their wings had 
 emerged, it is safe to assume that he would not give the 
 numerous varieties of nymph the go-by without seeing 
 whether it were not in fact possible to reproduce them on 
 a hook with sufficient exactitude to induce the trout to 
 
EX MORTUA MANU 87 
 
 take hold. It is not suggested that he might not also 
 evolve the floating fly for use on special occasions, but 
 I venture to think it would take a place quite secondary 
 to the nymph, if once the initial difficulty of imitating the 
 nymph were surmounted. He would ascertain that during 
 the period of preparation for the rise these nymphs w r ere 
 floating at large in considerable numbers, and were legiti- 
 mate subjects for imitation. Not so the larval or pupal 
 stages of the Phryganidae and the Perlidae, which, hiding 
 in their cases or lurking under stones, do not, at any stage 
 short of the perfect insect, lend themselves to imitation 
 for the purposes of the artificial fly. The larvae of the 
 diptera on which the trout feed are in general too infrequent 
 in streams or (like the perfect insects) too small to lend 
 themselves to the purposes of the fly fisherman. Assuming, 
 therefore, that the modern angler determined to discard 
 these types of fly, which, either by their dragging motion 
 or by the brilliancy or challenge of their appearance, excited 
 the curiosity or tyranny or pugnacity of the trout, he would 
 find himself practically confined to the floating fly and the 
 larvae or nymphs of the Ephemeridae. 
 
 He could not, of course, deny that artificial flies, dressed 
 by the lights hitherto vouchsafed to us, have caught trout 
 in the past, or that they will continue to do so in the 
 future. He would probably recognize that on some, 
 perhaps on many, waters the appeal to curiosity, tyranny, 
 or rapacity which they present affords a better chance 
 than the appeal to appetite which the floating fly and the 
 larval or nymphal imitation presents, and that some waters 
 are unsuited to the floating fly. But I think he would 
 have to admit that for an appeal resting upon appetite 
 alone the floating dry fly, the flush with the surface tumbled 
 floating fly, the dipping egg-layer, and the larval or nymphal 
 imitations are the only strictly legitimate lures, and that 
 
88 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 the floating ephemera must be imitated either in the dun 
 stage, dry with cocked wings, or spent and semi-submerged 
 with soft dun hackles, or in the spinner stage floating, 
 or semi-submerged with bright cock's hackles to represent 
 the wings. He would recognize that on the surface, 
 whether floating or semi-submerged, all fly wings and most 
 fly bodies present to an eye looking up to them a certain 
 degree of translucency. He would infer that to produce 
 that effect of translucency upon the eye of the trout he 
 would have to use materials which are either themselves 
 translucent, or which produce by reflected light the effect 
 of translucency, like some quills in certain lights. But 
 as dubbing will transmit light from whatever quarter, 
 whereas quills will only reflect it if looked at from the 
 proper point of view, he will infer that dubbings of suitable 
 colours have advantages over quills. He will realize that 
 the vision of the trout is not identical with that of man, 
 and if he be a skilled optician he may deduce what that 
 difference is, and how it affects the game. With the 
 nymphal or larval imitation, he will see that translucency 
 is even more important than in the case of the winged fly, 
 and that dubbing has the advantage of quickly absorbing 
 water and sinking his fly. This is, I think, as far as 
 common sense, unassisted by experience on the riverside, 
 would take him. But think of the advance. All the 
 unnatural horde of so-called imitations of natural flies 
 which are used under conditions in which no natural insect 
 is ever seen, would be relegated to the true category of 
 lures, and the angler whose business it is to take the feeding 
 trout with the simulacrum of what he is feeding on would 
 know what he was about, and if he chose to use any of the 
 abominations of the past, he, at least, would do so with 
 open eyes. At last he would be a free man, escaped from the 
 bondage of the past. Ex mortud manu, libera nos Domine. 
 
PART VI 
 
 BAFFLEMENT 
 
 No comfort comes of all our strife, 
 
 And from our grasp the meaning slips. 
 
 The Sphinx sits at the gates of Life 
 
 With the old question on her lips. 
 
 ***** 
 
 We have successes, and build upon them profound and far-reaching 
 
 theories — to have them shattered into smithereens on the very next 
 
 experience. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Hold we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
 Sleep to wake. 
 ***** 
 
 And as we dwell, we living things, on our isle of terror and under the 
 imminent hand of death, God forbid it should be man the created, the 
 reasoner, the wise in his own eyes — God forbid it should be man that 
 wearies in well-doing, that despairs of unrewarded effort, or utters the 
 language of complaint. Let it be enough for faith that the whole 
 creation groans in mortal frailty, strives with unconquerable constancy : 
 surely not all in vain. 
 
 I conclude this section of my book with a sense of 
 
 bafflement, fully aware that my speculations are mere 
 
 speculations and inconclusive in result. It may be that, 
 
 just as man is a creature of three dimensions, and not 
 
 constructed to comprehend the matters of the fourth 
 
 dimension, to say nothing of the n dimensions, plus and 
 
 minus, extending beyond or comprehending the three in 
 
 which he dwells, so man is intended never to solve the 
 
 mystery of the difference between the eyesight of man 
 
 and that of the trout. Be that as it may, it is beyond me, 
 
 and I have come to a time of life when I cannot hope to 
 
 add much to what little I have so far learned. Such as 
 
 that is, however, I dedicate it to my brother fishers with 
 
 the fly, in the hope that it may lead to further advances 
 
 in the not too distant future, and that in the meantime 
 
 it may be of some help to those who seek improvement 
 
 in the theory and practice of the art of trout-fly dressing and 
 
 of fishing with the fly. 
 
 89 12 
 
DIVISION II 
 
 SOME FURTHER MINOR TACTICAL 
 STUDIES 
 
 I 
 SOME PROBLEMS 
 
 I. THE HARE'S-EAR PUZZLE. 
 
 The latter days of April, with their outstanding hatch 
 of large medium olive duns, bring back this recurring 
 problem for the colourist. In a sense I am a colourist. 
 That is, I recognize — I am forced by the logic of facts to 
 realize — that the trout take certain artificial patterns 
 for certain natural flies. I admit the likeness is often not 
 obvious, and I infer from that — to the great indignation 
 of " Jim- J am " and others — that the trout do not, in all 
 probability, see colour as we see it. 
 
 For it is the fact that whenever I see the greenish olive 
 body of this spring dun I know that the season of the 
 Hare's ear — the Gold-ribbed Hare's ear — has come; and 
 I put up the Gold-ribbed Hare's ear with the utmost 
 confidence, and I find it more certainly and infallibly right 
 than any other dressing I know, unless I except the large 
 Orange Quill when the blue-winged olive is on. But that 
 is in the evenings, in the dusk, while the Gold-ribbed Hare's 
 ear kills in the full light of day. 
 
 Why, then, should a pattern dressed with a body of a 
 dusty grey-brown, ribbed with flat gold and extremely 
 rough, be taken by the trout for a smooth-bodied fly 
 with an olive-green body ? 
 
 90 
 
UPSTREAM WIND 91 
 
 It is true that fur, when wet, is extraordinarily trans- 
 lucent. It is probable that the gold catches some of the 
 green of the under- water weeds reflected upward from below. 
 But still the facts as known to us suggest some problem 
 of the eyesight of the trout which requires solution if we 
 are to arrive at a true theory of the art of fly dressing. 
 
 It has been suggested that the artificial is taken in 
 this case for the natural fly, either just hatching out of its 
 shuck and not entirely extricated, or else standing on its 
 shuck. But if that is so, why should not all the upwinged 
 duns be represented upon similar principles ? 
 
 At one time the late Mr. F. M. Halford was a great 
 advocate of the Gold-ribbed Hare's ear, but I believe that 
 latterly his enthusiasm for precise imitation induced him 
 to give it up, successful pattern though he knew it to be, 
 because he could not explain its success to his satisfaction. 
 
 I confess I do not take it to be a lure. The trout do 
 not take it like a lure. I believe they take it for a natural 
 insect — the medium olive dun — which is on at the time. 
 But why ? It is, by the side of this problem, easy to see 
 why the Blue Quill is regarded by the fish as the pale 
 watery dun. 
 
 Still, the Hare's ear kills. And I should like to know 
 who was the genius who first conceived its possibilities, 
 and how he got at his theory. 
 
 If we had that information progress might be possible. 
 
 2. UPSTREAM WIND. 
 
 It is true that it had snowed and hailed and sleeted, and 
 wintry-blasted and rained every day of April up to and in- 
 cluding the Saturday of Easter; but my friend "Fleur-de- 
 Lys" need not have been so demned superior on the telephone 
 when he cried off our engagement to go down that afternoon 
 to open our Hampshire season together. It is some satis- 
 
92 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 faction to think that he is sorry for it now. I had a sort of 
 notion there was more of a chance than appeared obvious 
 on the surface of things, and the very fact that " Dab- 
 chick," in the Field of that week, had issued his most 
 impressive warning that it would be hopeless to expect any 
 sport at Easter, only made me more set in my determina- 
 tion to go down and offer the trout some samples of my 
 fly dressing. 
 
 Years ago I was walking by the Beverly Brook in 
 Richmond Park, when I came across a dark secondary wing- 
 feather of a heron, and conveyed it home. I dyed it a rich 
 brown olive, of the hue that goes dirty orange where the 
 pith of the split stalk of the feather is exposed, and ever 
 since I have dressed myself annually a small stock of Rough 
 Spring Olive with a body of that feather, and have generally 
 killed fish on them before the big dark spring olive took 
 his departure about mid- April. Here is the recipe: 
 
 Hook. — No. i. 
 
 Silk. — Bright yellow, well waxed. 
 
 Wings. — Darkest old cock starling. 
 
 Body. — Three or four strands of dyed heron's herl, as 
 
 above described. 
 Rib. — Fine gold wire. 
 Hackle. — Dark brownish olive. 
 Whisks. — Ginger. 
 
 For the wet pattern the hook may be a size larger. 
 
 Well, the week-end was bleak enough to satisfy the 
 malicious soul of " Fleur-de-Lys." But the beginning of 
 the new week broke very pleasantly bright and sunny, and 
 so, though I knew from old experience that it was not 
 the slightest use to be on the water before twelve o'clock 
 (Greenwich time, not summer time), yet 10.30 summer time 
 found me in waders and with my rod put together making 
 across the water meadows for a deep length of the river 
 
UPSTREAM WIND 93 
 
 which I had found in other years the most lucrative length 
 at the beginning of the season. 
 
 The length which I selected to begin upon ran nearly 
 north-west to south-east, down to a short bend, when the 
 stream turned due east. The bend is always a satisfactory 
 place at which to observe fly coming down, as the stream 
 flows sharply and deeply along the western bank, and seems 
 to concentrate the hatch of duns into a yard-wide causeway 
 under the bank. And so, when I reached the spot, quite 
 naturally I ignored the absurdly early hour, and gave up 
 watching the snipe and the strings of wild duck and the 
 two pairs of swans preparing to nest, and the hundred and 
 one charming things with which the water meadows teem, 
 and concentrated on the current in the corner. It was 
 by now ten minutes to eleven summer time (9.50 a.m. by 
 Greenwich), and consequently at least two hours before 
 there was any reasonable hope of the fly beginning to show. 
 But I had my cast soaked and a Rough Olive floater tied 
 on and oiled, and I didn't feel a bit unreasonable. Pres- 
 ently eleven o'clock (summer time) chimed, and almost 
 before the echoes of the last stroke had died there appeared a 
 little dark form on the surface at the lower end of the bend. 
 It drifted, fluttering, for a little space, and then there was 
 a cheerful smack and a widening ring, and it was not. 
 It did not take long to get my distance ; the wind, blowing 
 from south-east by south, though strong, was not un- 
 friendly, and promptly I was covering the trout. Twice 
 he rose at natural flies, and three other fish began above 
 him in the same bend. The next one looked like a bigger 
 trout. However, I stuck to my fish, and at length brought 
 him up to my Dark Olive — short. I then cast across to 
 a fish I had seen rise just by a tussock at the point of the 
 inner corner of the bend. Up he came boldly — and missed. 
 I pondered. I knew my pattern was as good imitation of 
 
94 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 the dark spring olive as was made, if not better; but 
 something was wrong. I caught a fly and had a look at 
 it. It was not the dark spring olive at all, but the large 
 medium olive which usually comes on about mid- April, 
 a fly which experience has taught me indicates Gold- 
 ribbed Hare's ear. I had only one in mjr box, but I 
 knotted it on and was presently covering my first riser 
 again. Up he came promptly and fastened firmly, and 
 presently was guided to the net, a nice plump fish of 
 one pound three ounces, in excellent condition. In the 
 course of his struggles he had, however, run up into the 
 province where the bigger trout had been rising above, 
 and therefore, though I had not followed him, I thought 
 it wise to give the corner rest, and I rambled down-stream 
 for a hundred yards or so in search of another riser to 
 keep me occupied. None appearing, I returned in a quarter 
 of an hour, to find all three fish in the bend again busy 
 sucking down the duns every two or three minutes. I 
 offered my Hare's ear to the lowest, and half a dozen 
 times it was ignored. So I cast across to my riser under 
 the far bank. He came up and missed the fly. Some- 
 thing was evidently wrong. I caught another fly, and 
 found that the big dark spring olives were now coming 
 down, and that the few medium olives among them were 
 being rejected in favour of the larger fly. Back went 
 my Rough Olive, and the first time it covered the trout 
 right it was taken. So was the trout — a fish of one and 
 three-quarter pounds. I put down the next fish, and got 
 the third before twelve o'clock. 
 
 I had now fished out the bend and had the wind behind 
 me straight upstream, with, if anything, a shade of a 
 push against my own bank. There was a strong ripple 
 in mid-river, with deep oily water under my bank, and it 
 was there I found most of the few rising fish concentrated. 
 
UPSTREAM WIND 95 
 
 The duns were coming down in quite fair quantity for 
 the time of year; but, in the strong breeze, they were 
 skidding and skating about on the surface, and even being 
 blown upstream, so that the trout could not depend on 
 their coming down to them quietly and evenly; and 
 presently I noticed that these flies were not being taken, 
 but only the disabled flies which were blown on to the 
 water, and had one or both wings caught. I found, too, 
 that my next fish would have nothing to do with my fly 
 floating cocked and well dried; but he had it immediately 
 it was offered semi- submerged. Acting on this tip, I laid 
 siege to some three other trout in the next couple of hundred 
 yards. I cannot claim any merit. It was a duffer's day. 
 I had the right fly, and the wind took it into the mouths 
 of the trout. Anyhow I got the lot, and by one o'clock 
 the strap across my chest began to feel uncomfortably tight. 
 
 I was still some way from the luncheon hut, and I 
 occupied the next hour in fishing up to it. But after 
 one o'clock there was a change in the humour of the fish, 
 for though they came up readily enough to the same fly, 
 and were apparently taking the natural fly as well as ever, 
 not one would take soundly, and I lost five, each after a 
 brief run. Then they stopped for the day. I waited in 
 the meadows till four o'clock on the chance of an after- 
 noon rise, but none came on. So well content I conveyed 
 my three and a half brace, of which the first was the smallest, 
 back to my inn, and indited a postcard to " Fleur-de-Lys," 
 because I thought it would gratify him to know what he 
 had missed. 
 
 It is perhaps only fair to say that the following day 
 spring set in again with all its arctic severity. There was 
 an icy wind from the west, about a dozen flies seen on 
 the water all day, one fish observed to rise three times — 
 once at me, short — and a toom creel for the writer. 
 
96 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 3. A CURIOUS CONTRAST. 
 
 It is one of the charms of fly fishing that no two days 
 are exactly alike, however closely the weather conditions 
 may seem to correspond. This is an account of two con- 
 secutive spring days on the Itchen which presented a 
 remarkable contrast. 
 
 I have long had an affection for the large dark olive, 
 and as it is seldom seen on the Itchen after mid-April I 
 determined, in spite of a keeper's warning that the trout 
 had not yet begun to get under the banks, to snap a couple 
 of days by the water-side, and I chose Wednesday and 
 Thursday, April 9 and 10. Tuesday, the 8th, did not give 
 me much encouragement, for it was a bitter day of north- 
 east wind, and, indeed, that wind had been prevailing 
 for nigh a week. It was therefore more for the pleasure 
 of stretching a line against the wind with my ten-foot 
 Leonard than with any expectation of sport that I strolled 
 into the meadows at about 10.30, fortified by waders 
 and a mackintosh against the icy wind which blew dead 
 down-stream. But by the time I had assembled my rod 
 and had passed the line through the rings I saw, to my 
 astonishment, a large dark olive skating along the surface, 
 propelled by the wind at more than the natural pace 
 of the stream, and before eleven o'clock the first rise 
 was in evidence ; and very soon I was ware of no . less 
 than three trout on the feed in the short stretch which 
 was in sight. I watched them carefully to see if they 
 were taking the surface duns, and soon made up my mind 
 that they were not. So I knotted on a wet pattern of the 
 large dark olive, and began with No. 1. He, however, 
 was " not taking any," and the same was true of No. 2. 
 The light, indeed, was a bad light — a sort of dull leaden 
 colour in sky and on the water, but everything looking 
 
A CURIOUS CONTRAST 97 
 
 preternaturally clear. The third fish was an inexperienced 
 person, an inch under regulation length, and he was returned 
 to the water to gain his inch and wisdom. Then there 
 came a break in the clouds and a brief gleam of sun; but 
 the large dark olives, which had been growing more 
 numerous, began to slacken, and I could find no more 
 rising trout. On a little bare patch, however, under the 
 far bank, just where a small meadow runnel discharged 
 into the stream, I made sure I spied a sizable trout, and 
 after an ineffectual shot or two I got my fly over him. He 
 looked at it and turned away. The next shot got it in 
 the mouth of the runnel. An under-water turn towards 
 the bank brought the fly into his, as I rightly judged, and I 
 shortly had the pleasure of netting out my first keepable 
 trout of 1913 — a well-conditioned fish of fifteen inches. 
 Before I had consigned him to my bag the cathedral clock 
 struck noon. From that time on I did not see another 
 large dark olive. 
 
 I had opened on the side-stream, but now I migrated to 
 the main. For a while there was a lull. Then I became 
 aware of a scattering rise of small palish olives. I cast 
 over a number of rising fish with but little success, for 
 though I rose several of them they all came short except 
 four, and I was convinced that they were all grayling, like 
 the two brace I caught. Since grayling were, as the 
 chemists put it, " in excess " in the water, and as the 
 standing rule is to kill all you take, I knocked my two 
 brace on the head. Presently I turned down-stream again, 
 and seeing another grayling put up I cast down to him 
 and let the fly swing over him. In a second he took firmly 
 and was fast. Another followed, and another, almost as 
 fast as I could cast. Fish which came short at a fly floating 
 loose struck firmly and hooked themselves on a taut 
 down-stream line. By degrees ere five o'clock I raised my 
 
 13 
 
98 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 two brace of grayling to nine and a half brace, and thought 
 I had done good service to the water in doing so. All this 
 time I had not seen another trout put up. Returning 
 to the side-stream I found nothing moving, a fact which 
 did not surprise me at the time of day at that time of 
 the year; but presently I spied a hovering fish of good 
 size over a pale gravel patch. I despatched my dark 
 Green well's Glory to him, and at the fourth offer he took 
 it gaily. He proved to be the duplicate of my first trout 
 of the day, both in length and condition. Finding no other 
 fish showing, and feeling disinclined to return to my inn, 
 I strolled back to the main, and between 5.30 and 6.15 I 
 killed another brace of grayling. The startling thing, 
 however, was that the trout were beginning to line up 
 along each bank, as if preparing for an evening rise. I 
 even brought up (and missed) two. I did not, however, 
 wait for the evening rise to materialize, showing thus most 
 commendable self-restraint. 
 
 The following day opened rather milder than its pre- 
 decessor, with the wind from the north veering to the north- 
 west. I was by the water-side punctually at a quarter to 
 eleven, but in spite of the milder weather I saw no fly 
 and no movement of a fish till 11.30. Soon after that hour 
 chimed I saw, about a hundred yards up, a trout of two 
 pounds if he was an ounce show half out of water as he 
 swirled half across the stream to take a nymph. I crawled 
 up into position, but he never showed again, and after 
 waiting a quarter of an hour and making a couple of chancy 
 casts I moved on. Two more fish broke the water, but 
 I failed in much the same way to place them. I now 
 came to a little spinney, just above which there is a sure 
 find for a good fish. There is a little nook in the bank at 
 the far side which is seldom untenanted when any rise is 
 toward. To-day was no exception, for hardly had my wet 
 
A CURIOUS CONTRAST 99 
 
 Rough Olive reached the holt ere my rod was a hoop and 
 I was battling with a big fish. Alas ! he elected to go 
 down, and the spinney and its barbed-wire fence forbade 
 any following. I had to hold and chance losing him, and 
 in a few moments he had kicked off. Two or three minutes 
 later the same fly tempted a very bright fish, just over 
 one pound, and he went into the basket. A few yards 
 farther on, over a bright-green weed patch, a big fish was 
 cruising, and alternating bulging rushes with soft, tiny 
 little rises. I suspected him of an occasional dry fly, and 
 watching him I found him guilty. Accordingly I put up 
 a small Pope's Nondescript, tied with hare's-ear legs, and 
 was about to approach him, when another trout broke 
 the surface a little nearer. He had the first offer, and 
 must have followed the fly down, for I was lifting the fly 
 for the next case when he slashed it and missed. I lost 
 no time in covering the larger fish beyond. He came up 
 promptly and was hooked, but got off after a flounder or 
 two on the surface. 
 
 I had now reached a broad shallow in which there were 
 several fish in position, and, selecting a good one, I put the 
 same fly over him several times. Presently, just as I was 
 about to lift it for another cast, the fly was taken by a 
 smaller fish lying below him and to the far side. He was, 
 however, a nice pounder, who looked as if he had not 
 spawned, he was so fat and bright. His struggles, how- 
 ever, put off all the other fish on the shallow and I moved on. 
 
 I now came to a place where a long belt of trees protected 
 the water from the north-west wind and left it absolutely 
 unruffled. Under the far bank there were one or two fish 
 rising at intervals to a very small pale dun, which began 
 to hatch out in nice quantity. I missed the first fish, 
 which I covered with a No. 1 Whitchurch, tied with honey- 
 dun cock's hackle on a No. 00 hook; but the second fish, 
 
ioo THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 making an almost invisible ring, and putting up a single 
 bubble as he sucked in the fly, proved to be a sixteen-inch 
 fish in beautiful fettle. He scaled two pounds one ounce 
 when weighed in the evening. 
 
 The next fish was taking in a similar place and in similar 
 style. After being covered several times he came up and 
 fastened, and after an extraordinarily brilliant fight came 
 to net — one pound four ounces. The next fish I rose and 
 missed — entirely my own fault. Then, almost in the spot 
 where I had taken my second trout the previous day, I saw 
 what looked to me like an exceptionally fine trout move 
 across an open patch. I changed my fly and put on an 
 Ogden's Hare's ear. While I was doing so he rose. He 
 put up a second time within a couple of inches of my fly, 
 and a third time a couple of casts later to take it. He 
 weighed one and. a half pounds that evening when I got 
 in. Here the river bent so as to receive the full force of 
 the north-wester up the next stretch, and I turned down 
 again to get to the main. On my way I found one trout 
 only rising, but he was willing, and made up my three 
 brace as the clock struck two. I walked some way up 
 the main, but did not see another fish rise, whether trout 
 or grayling. 
 
 A curious contrast these two days ! The first, the 
 colder of the two, the rise began earlier and went on till 
 after six, and the grayling were on all the time. The 
 second, the milder day, was entirely a trout day, and the 
 rise beginning at 11.30 was all over by two o'clock. The 
 same flies were on both days. Why this contrast ? 
 
 4. THE RED QUILL. 
 
 " The Red Quill is the sheet anchor of the dry-fly fisher- 
 man on a strange river." Thus authority— and it is true 
 enough. Yet in all the years of my fishing I have never 
 
THE RED QUILL 101 
 
 been able to persuade myself exactly what the Red Quill 
 means to the trout. According to my experience, it is of 
 no service on a chalk stream in April. But from early 
 May to the end of the season there are few days when it 
 is not worth a trial. But why ? Some suggest that it is 
 taken for a spinner. It may be. Others say whirling 
 blue dun. This seems far fetched. On my own water 
 its most deadly time is, according to my observation, 
 when the trout, though feeding freely and to all appearance 
 rising, are in fact taking nymphs just below the surface — 
 but without bulging. The absence of the head-and-tail 
 action proves that they are not taking spent spinner, and 
 they are letting the subimago go by. Why, then, do they 
 take the Red Quill ? There is one other fly and one only 
 I know which they take in the same way, and that is 
 Pope's Nondescript. But that they will take at times 
 when they are feeding on nymph in any fashion, either 
 bulging, nymphing without bulging, or tailing. 
 
 In the case of Pope's Nondescript, I imagine the broad 
 gold tinsel of the body (a feature shared with Gold-ribbed 
 Hare's ear) is advertisement enough to call attention to an 
 attraction existing in a plane in which, for the moment, the 
 trout is not engaged. The Pink Wickham no doubt 
 attracts the tailing trout in the same way. 
 
 But except for the hackle, which, if sharp and bright, 
 may have a certain brilliance, the Red Quill is a modest 
 little fly enough. Yet it does attract many a trout which 
 is normally feeding below to take it on the surface. I 
 have been driven to wonder whether it is taken for a 
 hatching nymph, being generally darker than the fly on 
 the surface. Yet this can hardly be a satisfactory solu- 
 tion. I am left with the facts and no theory to account 
 for them. For this reason I seldom use the Red Quill. 
 
102 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 5. THE ENTRANCE OUT. 
 
 An Interlude. 
 It was three o'clock on a hot August afternoon, and such 
 show of fly as was to have preceded the evening rise was 
 definitely over for the day. It was too soon to make for 
 the hut for tea, and there were no cairiers in the water 
 meadows handy enough to encourage a tired and, if the 
 truth be told, very sticky angler to seek them in search 
 of a possible willing trout. The weakness of the flesh 
 would have suggested lying down, if there had been any 
 suitable place to lie. The same weakness forbade the 
 attempt on the rough and cow-trodden marshy embank- 
 ment which contained the river hereabouts. There was 
 no seat and nothing to read, so obviously the line of least 
 resistance led to looking for a fish in the main stream. 
 The morning's operations had yielded a couple of brace 
 from under the hither bank, and the other customers at 
 that counter were probably in retreat. Remained the 
 opposite bank, where, exposed on bare patches of gravel, 
 there might be a fish or two amenable to the temptation 
 of a small Sedge. That, too, was unlikely, for fish in such 
 positions had not escaped attention during the morning 
 rise. Stay ! there was " the entrance out." The meadows 
 on the far side had some years back been flooded and had 
 never been redeemed, so that beyond the eastern bank 
 there lay some ten acres or so of overgrown swamp, the 
 haunt of coot, moorhen, and dabchick, vilely overgrown 
 moreover with flannel weed, and the mother, o' nights, of 
 innumerable swarms of venomous mosquitoes. Where the 
 water made its entrance into this area had not made itself 
 plain to the angler, but he did know of a recent break in 
 the embankment a little farther down-stream, through 
 which some at least of the overflow found its way back 
 
THE ENTRANCE OUT 103 
 
 to the river by a shallow and narrow channel. That the 
 overflow carried food of some sort into the river was 
 evident from the fact that the neck of the channel had 
 been occupied during the morning by a biggish black fish 
 which was not breasting the rapid flow for nothing, while 
 a little below in the main stream another fair fish had stood 
 expectant of what his superior might allow to pass. If 
 these fish were still there, they would still be feeding. If 
 feeding, they would be takable. One might as well see. 
 Yes, they were there all right. Seeing, one might as well 
 try. It was better than doing nothing. Such light air 
 as there was helped to carry the little Red Sedge across, 
 and drop it in the little channel neatly enough. No offer — 
 no notice even. Probably a dry fly is a mistake. Try 
 a little wet beetle — say a Coch-y-bondhu. The first time 
 the trout looked at it and half turned. The second time 
 he let it by without a quiver. Yet he must be quite busy 
 feeding. On what ? Why not mosquito nymphs ? But 
 what colour ? A muddy-coloured little beast, probably 
 hanging head downward with his tail at the surface. Here 
 in the fly box is a reversed nymph, with a blob of dirty- 
 coloured dubbing representing head and thorax at the 
 bend of the hook, which might represent him at a pinch 
 if the hackle be cut down. Let us try it first on the fish 
 below in the river. The first chuck is not quite far enough 
 over. The next is a little too far, and drops the nymph 
 in the eddy. What's that ? It looked like a turn of a 
 fish under water. The hand has instinctively responded 
 and the hook has gone home. Down-stream he tumbles, 
 battling bravely, and presently the net receives his fourteen 
 inches. 
 
 Is the biggish black fish still in the break in the embank- 
 ment ? Yes, there he is, stemming the smart little current 
 as busily as ever. It is quite imperative to get the fly 
 
104 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 and gut to him wet, so as to have no surface drag (sub- 
 aqueous drag it is impossible to help). So the nymph 
 must be switched over to him. The first switch is a bit 
 short. The next lands the insect on the bank, where for 
 a moment or two it is hung up in the herbage, but, thank 
 goodness ! the hook comes away without damage. Two 
 or three times in a dozen casts the same thing occurs, but 
 still the fish is unscared and as busy as ever. At last the 
 fly pitches about a foot above him and a few inches to his 
 left. There is a quick turn of his head, a simultaneous 
 turn of our wrist, a violent lash of a broad tail, and the 
 black trout shoots indignant into the main, tears headlong 
 down-stream, hooping the little rod, which is at once too 
 weak and too strong for him. Alas, brave fish ! if for 
 the nymph of the mosquito that little channel was the 
 entrance in, for you it has been what an Irish friend of 
 mine termed " the entrance out." 
 
 6. THE ALDER AND CANON K. 
 
 For many years after I had become a fly-fisherman I 
 never did any good with the Alder. I first owned a fly 
 rod (of a sort) in 1874, but although I had read and loved 
 Charles Kingsley' s " Chalk-Stream Studies," it was not till 
 1904 that I had any success with his favourite fly. It is 
 true that my May and June-time fishing had been almost 
 exclusively on the Itchen (which seldom yields any results 
 to the Alder) and on the lower Kennet, when the May fly 
 alone brought up the trout. But in 1904 I took a holiday 
 in Bavaria which covered the first eighteen days of June, 
 and for some reason which I do not quite recall I took 
 with me a small stock of Black Alders purchased of Messrs. 
 Peek and Son, of 40, Gray's Inn Road, which appealed to me 
 as being of the genuine Kingsley tie. Kingsley, it will be 
 remembered, fished his Alder (and his Caperer or Sedge) 
 
THE ALDER AND CANON K. 105 
 
 well sunk. These Alders, therefore, were tied with long 
 wings of a soppy game hen's wing, tied slanting well back 
 from the shoulders over a peacock's herl body, and there 
 was a soft black hen's hackle tied in front of the wings. 
 The hooks were Nos. 3 and 4 eyed Snecky Limericks. 
 
 The May fly was not well on when I arrived, though it 
 had begun to hatch ; but at a little distance the water-side 
 bushes looked as if they wore plummy-dun haloes, which 
 on approach disclosed themselves as clouds of humming 
 alder flies. I began fishing on the afternoon of my arrival, 
 and tied on an Alder. I caught a big grayling with it 
 at first cast, and soon after, with the sodden fly, I hooked 
 a trout under the far bank which, judging from the distance 
 between the tip of his tail and the place where my line 
 was cutting the water, I put down at five pounds. I fought 
 him down a couple of hundred yards, he boring all the time 
 under his own bank. Then he turned and forced his way 
 irresistibly, still under his own bank, right back to the 
 cut-weed pile close to which I had hooked him, and 
 of which I had steered him clear, and there he came 
 unstuck. 
 
 As I subsequently killed another trout of four pounds 
 six ounces on the same stream, on the same rod with 3X gut 
 on an Alder, and that between two trees which would not 
 let me move up or down, I do not think my estimate of 
 five pounds for that last ftsh was excessive. At any rate, 
 the incident encouraged me to persevere with the Alder, 
 and next day I took eighteen brace nearly all with the 
 same pattern of Alder. I was fishing not many yards 
 behind my companion, who had therefore put down every- 
 thing on our side of the water, and I got nearly all my 
 trout under the opposite bank with a sunk Alder. Two 
 only were under one pound weight. Next day, on another 
 length, I had sixteen and a half brace, nearly all with the 
 
 14 
 
io6 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 wet Alder fished up or across. Next day the May fly 
 came on nicely, but before it did so I had three brace of 
 pounders in fifty yards with the wet Alder. Towards the 
 end of our stay the heat became very oppressive and the 
 water ran low and stale, but in sixteen days' fishing, some 
 days only partially occupied, I had two hundred and forty- 
 nine trout, of which fully half were taken with the wet 
 Alder. 
 
 In the following season (May 22 to June 4), on the 
 same river, I had two hundred and sixty-five in fourteen 
 days, and again the wet Alder scored heavily. From that 
 time on I have given the Alder a trial in its season on various 
 waters, including the upper Kennet (twenty brace in two 
 days), the Nadder (forty-four brace out of fifty-four brace 
 taken in three days), and have always found that it fished 
 better sunk than dry. Of the dry patterns I did best with 
 Dr. Charles Walker's pattern (described in " Old Flies 
 in New Dresses "), but at best it was not in the same street 
 with the wet pattern. 
 
 The wet pattern sinks readily and sinks deep. It is 
 not in the least like the nymph of the alder. The trout 
 undoubtedly never sees the natural alder as a perfect 
 insect at a depth below the surface. Yet the successful 
 period of the wet Alder is when the natural fly is out. It 
 will take at other periods, but nothing like so well. I know 
 of no beetle out at that time for which the wet Alder would 
 be taken. I have heard it suggested that it may be taken 
 for a tadpole, but I cannot say I have ever seen trout 
 feeding on tadpoles. 
 
 The thing is an insoluble puzzle to me. The pattern 
 is too successful to be readily surrendered. It is obviously 
 accepted gleefully as food, but what does it represent ? 
 
THE WILLOW FLY 107 
 
 7. THE WILLOW FLY. 
 
 Another pattern which for some unexplained reason 
 kills best when fished sunk or flush with the surface is the 
 spent Willow Fly. I have killed scores of fish with it sunk 
 for one which I have killed with it floating. Yet I first 
 made the observation of the natural fly, which induced me 
 to imitate it with its fine wings spread out flat to right 
 and left of the hook, on a mill-cauld on the Coquet where 
 the flies were coming down spent on the surface. 
 
 It is true that the various Yorkshire patterns dressed to 
 simulate Perlida?, such as Brown Owl and Dark and Light 
 Woodcock and Orange, are all tied to sink, and are fished 
 wet. But these are for rough tumbling streams, while the 
 successes with the wet spent pattern of which I write 
 have been nearly all attained upon smooth, even, limestone 
 and chalk streams. 
 
II 
 
 SOME FLY DRESSING 
 
 EXAMPLES 
 
 I. IRON BLUE. 
 
 If I had postponed the publication of " Minor Tactics of 
 the Chalk Stream " for a year or two there is one dressing, 
 that of the iron blue dun, given as a winged fly on p. 28 
 of that work and so illustrated as the frontispiece, for 
 which I could have substituted a far better dressing of the 
 nymph type. Here it is: 
 
 Hook. — No. 00 round bend. 
 
 Body. — Mole's fur on crimson tying silk, well waxed, the 
 silk exposed for two or three turns at the tail end. 
 
 Whisks. — Two or three strands of soft, mobile, white 
 hackle, quite short. 
 
 Legs. — The very short, nearly black, hackle from the 
 throat of a cock jackdaw, not exceeding two turns. 
 
 There is nothing very new in this dressing. The use 
 of the jackdaw's throat hackle for the Iron -blue has long 
 been known as Yorkshire. The only novelty in my 
 pattern is the use of a hackle so small as to suggest legs 
 only. In Yorkshire it appears to be used for wings. 
 
 I dressed a couple on gut one May afternoon going down 
 in the train, and next morning, seeing the iron blue on but 
 neglected, and being convinced by the character of the rises 
 that the trout were taking it under water, I soaked my 
 pattern, and as soon as it was soft enough I tied one on 
 
 108 
 
SOME FLY DRESSING 109 
 
 and offered it to a trout under my own bank. The cast 
 was a bad one, and the fly went under a full yard outside 
 the trout, but without hesitation he sailed over and gulped 
 it. I wound up with four and a half brace averaging 
 one and a half pounds all on the Iron-blue nymph, and 
 went off without waiting for the evening rise. 
 
 After that I always made it my business to have some 
 Iron-blue nymphs so dressed, and they have been worth 
 many a good trout to me. 
 
 In and after May, when the iron blue comes on, it will 
 very often be found that the floating subimago is neglected, 
 but that there are splashy, agitated, rather violent rises 
 occurring at some not at all obvious attractions. If the 
 angler is wise, he will have had his Iron-blue nymph in 
 soak and will lose no time in attaching it, and he need not 
 be surprised if his fish comes some way off his beat to 
 collect it. 
 
 2. A GOOD SMALL OLIVE. 
 
 The July Dun nymph described on p. 32 of " Minor 
 Tactics of the Chalk Stream " has proved a consistent killer, 
 dressed with and without gold wire as therein described. 
 
 The floating subimago I tried to imitate with a darkish 
 variety of a stock pattern of olive, which in a range of shades 
 from light to dark I have found fish well from the middle of 
 April to the end of the season. This is the stock pattern : 
 
 Hook. — No. o or 00 (Shape No. B. 7362 Bartleet). 
 
 Hackle. — Greenish- olive cock. 
 
 Body. — Primrose or yellow tying silk. 
 
 Rib. — Fine gold wire, several turns like a Green well's 
 Glory. 
 
 Whisk. — Greenish-olive cock. 
 
 Wings. — Starling primary, palest to darkest. 
 
 The entire fly should be tied so as to be in keeping — 
 all dark, all medium, or all light. 
 
no THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 But in July I found it ignored, as were all other patterns, 
 till I put on one which I had casually tied with exactly the 
 same materials with the addition of three strands of light 
 heron herl dyed greenish-yellow olive. This pattern proved 
 very attractive, and each year since I have proved its 
 efficiency when the July dun is on. This is how I came to 
 discover it. 
 
 3. JULY DUN. 
 One July morning some few years back I was occupying 
 a few minutes while waiting for breakfast at my Hampshire 
 inn, by adding to my already excessive stock of trout flies, 
 when the sight of a thin wing covert feather of a heron, 
 dyed a medium greenish-yellow, tempted me to tie in a 
 00 size a sort of pale rendering of a heron herl bodied fly 
 which, as the Rough Olive, had long served me well at 
 the opening and close of successive trout seasons. So I 
 varied a pattern which had served me well in a variety of 
 shades all through the season by giving it a body dubbed 
 with three strands of the herl. Here is the dressing: 
 
 Hook. — No. 00 down-eyed Bartleet's shape, B. 7362. 
 Tying Silk. — Yellow. 
 
 Hackle and Whisk. — Greenish-yellow dyed cock. 
 Body. — Three strands of thin heron herl from outer wing 
 
 covert dyed greenish-yellow. 
 Rib. — Fine gold wire. 
 Wing. — Starling, darkish. 
 
 I liked the look of the result enough to dress a second 
 to match the first. 
 
 It was a sunny morning with a faint air from the south- 
 east stirring when I got down to the water-side, and I 
 chose to open operations on a stretch of the east bank of 
 the Itchen which runs for a couple of hundred yards from 
 slightly north of west to slightly south of east. It is 
 
SOME FLY DRESSING in 
 
 seldom that one gets the wind to serve that length per- 
 fectly, but if one does it is well to seize the opportunity, 
 for the trout that haunt that bank run big for that part 
 of the Itchen, and I knew that near the bottom of the 
 length there was one particularly desirable trout. 
 
 He did not keep me long before disclosing his position, 
 close up to the flags some thirty yards up. A little darkish 
 dun came over him and was intercepted, and then another 
 and another. I dropped down to the eddy at the bend and 
 netted out one of these little duns, and it seemed to me that 
 the fly which I picked from stock (dressed without the herl, 
 but otherwise precisely like the pattern last above described) 
 matched the natural fly with unusual precision. It was 
 about 9.30 when I delivered my first cast. It was after 
 eleven when, in despair after having tried at intervals a 
 whole series of patterns without having put my fish down, 
 I put on my herl-bodied dun of the morning. It was 
 accepted with the utmost confidence, and in a moment I 
 was battling with a two-pounder, which in due course came to 
 net. The only other fish which I found rising in the length, 
 a trout of about one and three-quarter pounds, followed 
 suit, and I thought I was in for a good thing. Alas ! the 
 rise, which was never more than scanty during that morning, 
 did not last me to the next bend. 
 
 But the pattern had made an impression on me, and each 
 year since, as March has come round, I have tied for myself 
 and my friends a small supply, which indeed I find diffi- 
 cult to keep, so well has the pattern justified itself. Here 
 is an instance. 
 
 My friend B. was a guest on the same water in July of 
 1919, and we sat down to wait for the beginning of the rise 
 a couple of hundred yards below the length above 
 described. Presently a trout began feeding with great 
 vigour in an eddy just off the centre of the current with 
 
U2 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 occasional incursions into the current. He was taking a 
 little dark dun, and taking it on the surface. I caught one 
 of the flies, and my friend matched it, as he thought, per- 
 fectly from his box. " You had better try one of my 
 July duns," I said, offering him one. He wouldn't have 
 it, and I knotted it on to my own cast. For the next 
 twenty minutes B. besieged that trout, casting to him 
 with great skill, trotting his fly down the edge of the eddy, 
 and never letting it get into the drag of it. The trout 
 went on rising busily, taking flies quite close to B.'s, but 
 never taking B.'s fly. At last B. said: " I can do nothing 
 with this fish. You see what you can do with him, while 
 I change my fly." I put my July dun to him, and the first 
 time it covered him it was joyfully accepted, and B. pres- 
 ently netted out for me a beautiful fish in first-rate 
 condition, two pounds six ounces in weight. 
 
 Then he said: " If you don't mind, I'll reconsider my 
 refusal of your pattern." So I gave him the only other one 
 I had, and we moved up to the next fish. Sure enough, 
 the first time the fly went over him he had it, and B.'s 
 conversion was complete. 
 
 Many angling books give dressings of the July dun, 
 usually with bodies dubbed with a mixture of blue fur and 
 yellow wool, or fur of sorts; Ronalds among others. 
 Curiously enough, I find no mention of the July dun in 
 any of Mr. F. M. Halford's works. It would be strange, 
 however, if all those who have given the July dun in the 
 past were wrong, and I should hesitate to believe it, even 
 if my own observation of the occurrence of a little darkish 
 dun in July were not confirmed by the success which, 
 from 1908 onwards, I have had in July with a little dark 
 nymph tied, as described on p. 32 of "Minor Tactics of the 
 Chalk Stream," to imitate a little dark olive nymph which 
 I took from the mouth of a trout in that month in 1908. 
 
SOME FLY DRESSING 113 
 
 It has proved " great medicine" when the trout are nymph- 
 ing in July, when the little darkish dun is simultaneously 
 coming down on the surface. 
 
 4. LITTLE RED SEDGE. 
 
 It is a good many years since I first dressed the pattern 
 of trout fly which I know by this name, and I should be 
 sorry to say how many trout have succumbed to it in the 
 interval. Although in dressing it I was not consciously 
 copying any other man's pattern, I cannot pretend to any 
 originality in its composition; but, such as it is, I have 
 found it without exception the most killing fly I have used 
 on chalk streams at all times when the upwinged dun was 
 not hatching and in all sorts of places. This is its make-up 
 as evolved experimentally: 
 
 Hook. — No. 1 down-eyed, square bend. 
 
 Tying Silk. — Hot orange waxed with brown wax. 
 
 Body Hackle. — Long, deep red cock, with short fibres, 
 
 tied in at shoulder and carried down to tail. 
 Rib. — Fine gold wire, binding down body hackle. 
 Body. — Darkest hare's ear. 
 Wings. — Landrail wing, bunched and rolled, and tied 
 
 on sloping well back over the tail. 
 Front Hackle. — Like body hackle, but larger, and long 
 
 enough to tie five or six turns in front of wing. 
 
 The modus operandi is as follows: — Having waxed a good 
 length of the silk, one begins winding almost at the eye of 
 the hook and whips closely to the shoulder, leaving ample 
 space on which to tie down the wings and wind the hackle. 
 One then ties in a short-fibred, long, brilliant red hackle, 
 almost blood red, by the root, and, after breaking or cutting 
 off the root, whips to the tail of the fly, securing with the last 
 two or three turns a couple of inches of fine gold wire. 
 Then it is well to drench the silk, where it is on the hook, 
 with celluloid varnish. Next one spins on the dubbing 
 
 15 
 
H4 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 thinly, whips to the shoulder, and takes a half-hitch beyond 
 the hackle. Then, taking the hackle point between the 
 pliers, one takes one turn on the bare hook, and winds in 
 open turns (say three or four) to the tail. Leaving the pliers 
 hanging, one winds the gold wire over the turns of hackle 
 in an equal number of turns, thus securing the stalk again 
 and again. A half-hitch secures the gold wire, which is 
 then broken off by a little gentle working to and fro. 
 It should not be cut. The turn of the broken end helps 
 to keep it secure, and the break generally comes closer to 
 the half- hitch than one could cut the wire. The hackle 
 tip can be broken off with a smart twitch. 
 
 The next step is to revarnish the head with celluloid 
 varnish. Then, taking a good long slip of landrail wing- 
 feather (nearly the whole fibre of one feather), one straightens 
 it, and, taking it by one edge in a pair of pliers and taking 
 care not to split the feather, one rolls it in a series of turns 
 until the feather is exhausted. It should then be a bunchy 
 roll, readily flattened by being pinched. Laying the roll, 
 well pinched and flattened, on its edge over the hook with 
 the cut end over the eye, one ties it down by taking three 
 firm turns over the fibre, then one turn tight behind and 
 one under the roots. If this is neatly done the entire waste 
 end can in general be cut clean away with a single cut of 
 the curved scissors. 
 
 This having been done, one drenches the roots in cellu- 
 loid varnish. This goes almost as hard as metal when 
 set, and holds the wing very perfectly on edge. 
 
 The next step is to take a long, short-fibred hackle of 
 the same neck as the body hackle, and, whipping it down 
 near the eye with the root towards the tail, wind the silk 
 tightly back to the base of the wing. Then with the 
 hackle pliers turn the hackle five or six turns over the 
 roots of the wing right up to the wing fibre; whip the 
 
SOME FLY DRESSING 115 
 
 tying silk through the hackle to the head, and finish with 
 the whip finish. A touch of celluloid varnish on the whip 
 finish makes all secure. Then the root of the hackle is cut 
 off with a sharp knife, and the fly is complete. 
 
 Thus tied it has an astonishing amount of wear in it, 
 and cocks most beautifully. I remember a day on the 
 Chess when I took fifteen trout with one fly of this pattern, 
 and then gave it to my host, who used it for several days 
 afterwards with success. 
 
 It is a pattern which I have found successful from May to 
 the end of the season under a variety of conditions, but 
 only when the up-winged dun was not present in quantity. 
 
 For instance, it is a nailer for the trout of cross-ditches 
 and drains, however narrow. It is also very attractive to 
 the banker that remains in position after the morning 
 rise is over. And often one may go on securing trout with 
 it all the afternoon and up to the edge of the evening rise, 
 especially in places where the sedges weep over the water. 
 
 But there is one set of conditions in which I have found 
 this pattern specially deadly. Sometimes in places where 
 the weeds grow near the surface one may see a movement 
 where the nose of the trout does not seem to break the 
 water, but the back fin and the tail successively show. 
 Just precisely what the fish is doing must be a matter of 
 surmise. I am inclined to think he has dislodged some 
 rather inert nymph from the weed and takes him just 
 below the surface. If you get your Red Sedge to a trout 
 feeding thus, and do not scare him, the odds are long 
 that you get him, and that he will be a good one. 
 
 5. PHEASANT TAIL. 
 
 I have more than once seen propounded an inquiry to 
 which I have seen no reply — viz., what fly the Pheasant 
 tail is supposed to represent. Well, I can answer that ques- 
 
n6 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 tion on my experience. In March, 1910, a friend was visiting 
 Cornwall, and he hoped to get some fishing, and just by 
 way of getting my hand in I sent him some flies of my own 
 tying, with some priceless hackles. Among these flies 
 were three or four Pheasant tails tied on No. 2 hooks. 
 " Ridiculously small for the water," my friend declared; 
 the theory being the smaller the fish the bigger the fly. 
 The Cornish streams were in flood, and he got no chance 
 of using my flies. But he announced his intention of using 
 the Pheasant tails in the Itchen a little later, when the 
 sherry spinner of the blue- winged olive was on. So to 
 prevent him from making an example of himself, I tied 
 him one or two more on something nearer life-size — 
 namely, No. 1- — and the result pleased me so much that I 
 tied two or three more for my own use. This is the tie: 
 
 Silk. — Hot* orange. 
 
 Whisks. — Honey-dun cock's shoulder hackle, three 
 
 strands. 
 Rib. — Fine bright gold wire, several turns, to secure 
 
 the flies from being broken by the teeth of the 
 
 trout. 
 Body. — Three or four strands of the ruddy part of the 
 
 centre feather of a cock-pheasant's tail. 
 Wings. — A sharp sparkling golden-dun cock's hackle of 
 
 high quality. 
 
 The size of hook may, of course, be varied to suit the 
 spinner which is on at the time. 
 
 On May 11 I found my friend on the water, not exactly 
 displeased with himself over a basket of two and a half 
 brace, all of them victims of the Pheasant tail. That 
 night I dressed some more of them for my friend and for a 
 guest I had brought down with me, and one for myself. 
 I spent the following morning without using the pattern 
 for some time. Then it occurred to me to try it, and I got 
 a trout of two pounds two ounces. A bit later my guest 
 
SOME FLY DRESSING 117 
 
 got a perfect picture of a trout of two pounds with his 
 example, and before I left at 4.30 I got another trout 
 of one pound nine ounces with the same pattern, while 
 my friend owed to it his brace of trout. 
 
 I left him attempting to negotiate a trout of two and a 
 half pounds or so. It was two pounds nine ounces, as a 
 matter of fact, for I got him next week-end. There was 
 an admirable procession of red spinners coming down the 
 water, and, though there were few fish moving, this was 
 one of them. He was taking with that head and back 
 fin and tail sort of rise which, to the initiated, indicates 
 spinner-taking; and in an interval between the puffs of 
 down-stream north-wester my Pheasant tail reached him 
 aright, and next moment was pulled home. 
 
 Several other trout were hooked and landed, and hooked 
 and lost, to that pattern during that week-end with red 
 spinner on the water, and I came to the conclusion that 
 I had long neglected a very useful pattern, in particular, 
 in the long hot evenings of July, August, and September, 
 when the blue-winged olive is on, and the deep ruddy 
 brown sherry spinner is plentiful. 
 
 It is, however, not of an evening only that the spinner 
 is a taking fly. It is often a tender memory to the morning 
 trout, and a fish found feeding before the general rise 
 begins is usually taking spinners, and is very accessible 
 to the temptation of a good imitation. 
 
 . 6. RUSTY SPINNER. 
 
 From the time when the pale watery dun first puts in 
 an appearance to the end of the season, one of the most 
 useful of chalk-stream patterns for evening use is the 
 Little Rusty Spinner. Tied on Bartleet's B. No. 7362 
 (a square-bent, slightly snecked, down-eyed hook) of 
 No. 14 size (about equivalent in this make to No. 00), with 
 
n8 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 hot orange silk dubbed with fine pig's wool or seal's fur of 
 red-ant colour — a deep rich mahogany red — ribbed with 
 fine gold wire and hackled with a rusty dun cock's hackle, 
 sharp and bright, and with whisks of three fibres of a 
 honey-dun cock's shoulder hackle, it proves extraordinarily 
 attractive at the time when small spinners come on the 
 water, and according to my experience it fishes as well 
 slightly submerged as floating. Dressed on No. i or even 
 No. 2 hook it is an excellent representation of the male 
 spinner of the blue-winged olive. No angler should be 
 without it at the appropriate season of the year. 
 
 7. THE POPE AND THE TAILERS. 
 
 Through the bogland of a marshy little Berkshire valley, 
 one of the most delightfully trouty of brooks known to me 
 cuts its way in such wise that though to reach it one has to 
 wade painfully through mud or to stagger from insecure 
 tussock to tussock equally insecure, yet when one gets to the 
 channel one finds underfoot clean hard pan, except where 
 the current has so silted up fine, sharp silver sand as to give 
 the river- weed foothold to grow luxuriantly. The stock of 
 trout is enormous, and but for the fact that they maintain 
 fine condition one would say excessive; for they are so 
 numerous that to scare one means to disturb quite a 
 stretch of water, and to set the trout bolting in all direc- 
 tions. And they are easily scared, for the water is seldom 
 knee-deep, often only ankle-deep, and averages, perhaps, 
 a foot. One would think the business of catching these 
 wary fish with a fly a hopeless one if you did not happen 
 to be by the water-side at the time of the take. Then 
 these trout, having once settled down to feeding, though 
 they still require adroit and careful fishing, are at length 
 approachable, and take a fly, dry or wet, presented 
 secundum artem with gratifying freedom. There are in- 
 
SOME FLY-DRESSING 119 
 
 numerable three-quarter pounders in this little river, 
 a good many pounders, and one day this year a friend 
 brought in three brace (the limit that may be kept), 
 totalling nine pounds. 
 
 It was my ill-fortune on the two occasions when 
 I last visited the river to light on days which were 
 characterized by bitter north-easterly winds blowing 
 straight upstream, and by an almost total absence of fly. 
 Thus, after getting a nice brace in the one sheltered spot 
 in the whole length, I found the entire morning of the first 
 day blank, for the reason that each movement forward 
 seemed to start some queasy trout, who bolted upstream, 
 and disturbed the next fifty or sixty yards of shallow. 
 The morning thus resolved itself into a series of waits for 
 things to settle. 
 
 Just before lunch-time I arrived at a sheep-bridge 
 which crosses the river and the entire marsh from side to 
 side. Here I resolved to eat my sandwiches and await 
 a rise of fly, as it had become evident that without such 
 a rise I was not going to emulate the eight to nineteen brace 
 days of a former visit. But as I approached the bridge 
 I saw two enormous trout (for the stream) rooting like 
 hogs in some weeds just above, and darting rapidly to 
 secure the shrimps or larvae which they had thus ejected 
 from their fastnesses among the weeds. The weeds were 
 in this part dreadfully full of flannel-weed, so I knew 
 it was no use to put up a wet fly. I put up a Pope's Green 
 Nondescript, size No. 000, and launched it over the sheep- 
 bridge, and over the nearest of the trout. He was on it 
 like a tiger, and on feeling the hook dashed down under 
 the bridge towards me, and smashed me with promptitude 
 and despatch, without neglecting to put down his com- 
 panion en route. 
 
 The incident, however, gave me my cue, and after my 
 
120 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 lunch I did not waste time in waiting for a rise which 
 never came, but set to work to find tailers. There were 
 quite a few of them, and they were generally good fish. 
 It was often very difficult to get them to see the Green 
 Nondescript. Often one got hung up in flannel- weed ; at 
 times one lined them and so scared them, but if they saw 
 the Green Nondescript without having been scared they 
 took it with admirable readiness. I lost many owing to 
 the small size of the hook and to the softness of mouth 
 which seems to characterize the fish of this stream, but 
 the discovery converted an apparently hopeless day into 
 quite an interesting one. 
 
 The second day was much like the first; wind in the 
 same quarter, stronger, if anything, than the previous day; 
 there was no fly, and the tailers did not begin till after 
 12.30, but after that hour I found one at work here and 
 there, wooed him with a Green Nondescript, and ended 
 by topping a nice three -brace basket with a trout of 
 two pounds three ounces. What the trout take Pope's 
 Green Nondescript for, or why they take it when tailing, 
 I have no idea; but it seems equally effective, dry or wet. 
 It must, however, be small. No. o was useless, No. 00 
 would take occasionally, but No. 000 seemed irresistible. 
 This is true not only of the brook in question, but of every 
 other chalk or limestone stream on which I have tried the 
 Pope on tailers. 
 
Ill 
 
 SOME MORE FLY DRESSING 
 PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE 
 
 THEORIES OF WET-FLY DRESSING OF TROUT FLIES. 
 
 The question why winged patterns of trout flies are used, 
 and used successfully under water, is no new one. It 
 must often have been a cause of bewilderment to the 
 thoughtful angler. But in seeking for an explanation the 
 inquirer only hampers himself if he assumes that the trout 
 takes the winged artificial fly merely as an imitation of the 
 natural fly. 
 
 The propensity of a trout to " go for " anything behaving 
 unnaturally is well known. He will lie peacefully among 
 a shoal of minnows, but let one of them be placed on a 
 flight of hooks and spun before him in a series of strange 
 contortions, and he is impelled to attack it. In the same 
 way, let a winged dressing of a fly be dragged across his 
 vision in a way in which no natural fly behaves, and the 
 same impulse is set in motion. This, no doubt, accounts 
 for the taking of the winged fly fished down-stream wet. 
 Somewhat similar considerations apply to the case of the 
 winged fly or team of winged flies dropped under a bank 
 or a bush and tripped across-stream towards the angler. 
 
 But winged flies are often presented to the trout much 
 more naturally than in either of these ways, and then, 
 during the rise, they are often, no doubt, taken for what 
 they purport to represent — namely, the subimago hatching, 
 
 121 16 
 
122 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 or hatched out. In fishing his team of flies upstream the 
 skilled wet-fly fisherman does not let his flies dwell long 
 enough to be deeply submerged, and he humours his line 
 so that the droppers are kept in the skin of the surface of 
 the water, and are brought down, head upstream, in 
 advance of the gut cast. In this case the flies are taken 
 either, as they alight, as natural flies afloat on the surface, 
 or later in the skin of the surface, perhaps as flies in the 
 act of hatching. 
 
 If the artificial winged fly becomes quite submerged it 
 may still be taken, for the water is generally fast ; the trout 
 has to make up his mind in a flash to take the fly or to 
 let it go, and the trout is not so clever a person as to 
 measure closely whether the fly be semi-submerged or an 
 inch or so under water. 
 
 The hackled North-Country pattern does not necessarily 
 represent a submerged fly, but one in process of hatching 
 or hatched out, and caught by the current and tumbled. 
 Again, the trout, busy in making the most of his meal- 
 time, does not make fine distinctions. Often, too, no 
 doubt, the dibbing dropper attracts by suggesting some- 
 thing alive and in difficulties. 
 
 In any case, the winged artificial fly, by its bulk, and 
 the hackled artificial fly, by its kick and action, are apt in 
 rough water to attract more attention to themselves than 
 would a bald imitation or representation of the nymph. 
 
 Moreover, for one natural fly that goes down over an 
 individual trout, he is apt to see a number of nymphs. 
 Every fisherman who has fished during a strong hatch of 
 any attractive insect knows how little chance his floating 
 imitation of that insect stands of being taken among the 
 crowd of natural insects. In the same way a bare imita- 
 tion of a nymph would come into competition with many 
 natural nymphs, and stand a comparatively poor chance of 
 
SOME MORE FLY DRESSING 123 
 
 being selected by the fish. A bare imitation would naturally 
 have legs as few and as short as the natural nymph or 
 larva, and, setting aside the difficulty of finding hackles 
 short enough to represent such legs with accuracy, the 
 imitation would look inert. 
 
 I have used imitations of nymphs on chalk streams for 
 some fifteen seasons with a measure of success when the 
 trout were not surface feeding, and I use them upstream 
 to feeding fish, and it is my observation that a mere bare 
 nymph without hackle is not so successful as one which 
 is lightly hackled with a short hackle. It is my belief 
 that the artificial nymph lightly hackled with a soft hackle 
 (whether small bird's or hen's) is taken for the natural 
 nymph in the act of hatching, and that in the case of the 
 artificial nymph lightly dressed with a bright cock's hackle 
 of a blue shade, the hackle, being almost water colour, 
 leaves the body of the artificial exposed, tends to arrest 
 speed of sinking, and probably lends the nymph a certain 
 degree of action in the water which suggests life. 
 
 Then in practically all my nymph patterns that are not 
 hackled with a soft feather I use a good deal of seal's fur 
 in the dubbing, which gives an effect of brilliance and 
 translucency, to which again a fine gold wire ribbing in 
 some cases lends aid. 
 
 All this is very crude, no doubt, and I can cordially 
 concur in the often expressed wish that some wet-fly 
 enthusiast would set to work and make exact reproductions 
 of nymphs and larvae in the same way as Mr. F. M. Hal- 
 ford treated the floating fly. And these should be sub- 
 mitted to searching tests, not only by one angler, but by 
 a large number of skilled men. 
 
 That distinguished angler who writes over the signa- 
 ture " Jim- J am " has published, both in the Field and 
 in his book, a description of a method of imitating nymphs 
 
124 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 which he found successful. I hope I may be forgiven 
 for saying that I do not think his method presents the 
 right line of approach to the best theory of imitation or 
 representation of nymphs, for his patterns were intended 
 to be fished down-stream and dragging, and they therefore 
 make an appeal to the same propensity in the trout which 
 attracts him to a spinning minnow or a dragging, winged 
 wet fly. 
 
 In shape of body the nymph may be easily imitated. 
 Colour is difficult to set down with precision in writing so 
 that the fly dresser can reproduce it with certainty, and the 
 best line of attack seems to me to be suggested by one of 
 the oldest nymph patterns, the Half-stone. Here one has 
 a bright, almost water-coloured, outer hackle, almost 
 invisible to a fish looking up, and a nymph-shaped body 
 well displayed, with the thorax of mole's fur spun on 
 yellow silk, and the yellow floss lower half of the body 
 which goes green in the water. 
 
 For colour, the angler who desires exact representation 
 in that respect would have to go to the living nymph. 
 A dip of a muslin net into a clump of river-weed would 
 produce a large variety of nymphs in all colours, from 
 pale yellow to darkest olive, and even to carrot colour. 
 
 It was on a variation of the Half-stone dressed with a 
 lower half of wool instead of floss that the famous Carrot 
 fly was modelled. In a series of modifications it has killed 
 for a brother angler many a good fish, fished as a nymph 
 on crack waters on the Itchen, the Test, and elsewhere. 
 And dressed large it has served as a May-fly nymph on 
 some bulging days on the Kennet, and has beaten the 
 winged fly and the Straddlebug hollow. 
 
 Representation or suggestion rather than imitation is 
 what the dresser of nymphs should aim at. That is one 
 reason why dubbings outclass quills for bodies of nymphs. 
 

 t^ 
 
 Plate II. METHOD OF DRESSING NYMPHS. 
 From a water-colour drawing by St. Barbe Goldsmith. 
 

SOME MORE FLY DRESSING 125 
 
 THE DRESSING OF NYMPHS. 
 
 Various plans have been devised for the making of 
 imitations of nymphs. Years before anyone — so far as the 
 books record — was really aware what a large proportion 
 of the food of trout was taken in the nymph or larval stages 
 the Half-stone was a successful fly. As I have said, I have 
 no doubt it was meant for a nymph. Years ago I had the 
 run of an old Westmorland fly book full of hackle flies, all 
 tied with silk bodies and a bunch of dubbing at the shoulder 
 under the hackle. These, but for the excessive length of 
 the hackle, might have been nymphs. And many patterns 
 described by Theakston in " British Angling Flies " were 
 more like nymphs than the winged fly they are supposed 
 to represent. So it would seem as if some anglers had 
 had their suspicions; but it is only comparatively recently 
 that any deliberate effort to represent nymphs has been 
 made. T. E. P., in the Angling Supplement of the Field 
 of April 1, 191 1, described a series of flies undoubtedly 
 meant for nymphs, and very effective they looked, though 
 rather long in the hackle. The nymphs of Dr. Mottram 
 ("Jim-Jam"), entirely without dubbing or hackle, I have 
 already referred to. I for some years earlier had been 
 feeling my way, via Tup's Indispensable, to the achieve- 
 ment of a series of nymphs. These have been hackled 
 — mostly with cock's hackle — tied as short, and setting 
 as close, as possible, and the bodies have been dressed 
 with dubbing. The dubbing has always consisted of, or 
 contained, seal's fur, as many of the nymphs are full of 
 lights and glistenings. Partly for the same reason, and 
 partly to prevent the tearing out of the dubbing by the 
 trout's teeth, a fine gold or silver wire ribbing has been 
 generally used. 
 
126 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 But the hackle has always been the trouble. It is 
 extremely difficult to get hackles stout enough in the fibre 
 to represent the legs of nymphs, yet short enough for the 
 same purpose, whether one uses cock's or hen's hackles, 
 or the feathers of small birds. Nipped hackles of the 
 latter class will serve, but every self-respecting fly dresser 
 resents nipped or cut hackles, and so I have thought out 
 a method which is, I think, better than using a nipped 
 hackle. Here it is: 
 
 Placing your hook — say, a Limerick No. 16 — in your 
 vice, begin whipping near the eye, and whip nearly half- 
 way down the shank. Tie in here, with point towards head 
 of hook, a bunch of six or eight fibres of feather of suitable 
 colour, regulating the length so that when the fibre is bent 
 over to the eye of the hook and tied down there will be 
 enough of the points left to be pressed out on either side 
 to represent the legs. Then pass the silk under the ends 
 of the fibres of feather on the side of the bend of the hook, 
 and whip on the bare hook to the tail; tie in two short, 
 stout, soft whisks of suitable colour, tie in gold or silver 
 wire, twirl on dubbing thinly, and wind to the place where 
 the fibre is tied in; wind on the wire in regular spacing 
 to the same point, and secure on the head side of the place 
 where the fibre is tied in ; thicken the dubbing, and wind 
 over roots of feather fibre to head. Then divide the points 
 equally, and press backward from the eye; bring over the 
 feather fibre to the head, tie it down with two turns, 
 including a half-hitch, cut off the waste ends, and finish 
 with a whip finish on the eye. Thus the legs are forced 
 to stand out at right angles, or rather more backward, 
 from the eye, and below the level of the hook shank, and 
 the effect of wing cases is produced. (See Plate II.) 
 
 A friend with whom I had discussed this method, and 
 with whom I had given the nymphs thus produced a very 
 
SOME MORE FLY DRESSING 127 
 
 encouraging trial on a Hampshire brook, suggests a varia- 
 tion of this method, which has the effect of overcoming 
 the difficulty present in my conception of judging the 
 length of fibre to be left out in order to get the legs of the 
 right length, and the variation has the added merit of 
 making the legs stand out on each side in the most satis- 
 factory way. Its defect is that it does not lend itself to 
 nymphs tied with a gold or silver ribbing, as it has to be 
 finished with an invisible whip finish in the middle of the body, 
 just behind the wing cases. This is the process (Plate III.) : 
 
 Placing your hook in the vice, take two turns near the 
 eye, tie down your bunch of fibres, which are to represent 
 legs and wing cases, with the points towards the tail, with 
 one firm turn, then bring the silk under the points close 
 up against the last turn and pull taut. Now press back 
 the points firmly. They can be divided a little later. 
 Spin your seal's-fur dubbing on the silk in just sufficient 
 quantity to represent the thorax, and wind it on. Then 
 bring over the waste ends, which were pointing over the 
 head, so that they point over the tail, dividing the points, 
 which are to represent the legs, in equal portions to right 
 and left. Tie down the fibres with two turns, and break 
 them off, either singly or in groups. Whip to the tail, 
 tie in the whisks as before, roll on more dubbing, whip 
 to the wing cases, clear the silk, and finish close up to the 
 wing cases with a close, hard whip finish, into which a 
 drop of celluloid varnish has been introduced, by placing 
 it on the loop of the tying silk as it is being drawn taut. 
 
 Both these methods of dressing are carried out with the 
 same coloured material for leg and wing cases, but there is 
 no difficulty about using two feathers of differing colours 
 in much the same way. Begin by taking a couple of turns 
 of silk near the eye, then lay your leg fibres along the hook, 
 with the tips towards the tail, take one turn over them, 
 
128 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 push the points back towards the eye, divide them equally 
 and bring over the waste ends, tie down with two turns 
 of silk, and break or cut off. Next tie down your wing- 
 case material with two or three turns over the points laid 
 towards the eye, and cut or break off the points close. 
 The rest of the operation is carried out as first described. 
 
 Any one of these methods, by the way, maybe employed for 
 beetles, more wing-case fibre being used, and the whole being 
 brought over from the tail instead of the middle of the hook. 
 
 For nymphs with freckled legs, brown partridge hackles, 
 brown or grey partridge hackles dyed, summer duck 
 hackles dyed in various shades of olives, or even undyed, 
 make very effective legs. For self-coloured legs the fibre 
 of the wings of a variety of birds, such as starling, landrail, 
 fieldfare, etc., are excellent. It must be remembered that 
 the legs of nymphs are stouter in appearance than the 
 fibre of the ordinary hackle. Good effects may be produced 
 with the yellow-pointed fibres of the golden plover. It is 
 probable that if these patterns are found generally success- 
 ful there will be a variety of useful. suggestions forthcoming. 
 The grey feather which supports the tail of the peacock, 
 dyed in a variety of hues, will be found, when wound on 
 like a quill, to make an admirable representation of the 
 lower half of the bodies of certain nymphs. It has an edge 
 which stands up at right angles to the hook, and suggests 
 the branchiae of natural insects. 
 
 In dressing nymphs one should remember that, though 
 they should not fall on the water hard enough to scare 
 the trout, their composition should ensure prompt sinking, 
 and if the trout be handy I am of opinion that they will 
 not sink very far. And I shall not be surprised if in a 
 few years the practice prevails of fishing open rough rivers, 
 where the wet fly at present holds its own, with a winged 
 fly at point and two or three nymphs as droppers. 
 
CTr 
 
 
 Plate III. ANOTHER METHOD OF DRESSING NYMPHS. 
 From a water-colour drawing by St Barbe Goldsmith. 
 
SOME MORE FLY DRESSING 129 
 
 THE PURPOSES OF A HACKLE. 
 
 The books on trout-fly dressing are to blame for the 
 prevalent opinion that the purpose of a hackle is to repre- 
 sent legs of a fly. It would be wrong to say that that is 
 never a purpose of a hackle, but it is wrong — " the wrongest 
 kind of wrong " — to represent it as the sole purpose or as 
 invariably one purpose of a hackle. 
 
 In some of the old books one finds instructions for 
 dressings of winged flies with no hackle, but anyone who 
 tried any such pattern nowadays with moderately shy 
 trout would find them apt to be scared by the violence of 
 the fall of the fly on the water. The first function, then, 
 •of a hackle is to break the fly's fall, to let it down lightly 
 on the water. And that is equally true whether it be a 
 cock's hackle, or a hen's, or a soft hackle from any of the 
 small birds. 
 
 When the fly reaches the water, another function, or 
 other functions of the hackle, comes or come into play. 
 If the fly be a floater, winged and hackled at the shoulder 
 only, then the functions are, first, flotation, and, secondly 
 (and often in a very secondary degree), imitation of the 
 legs of the fly. Many good fly dressers hold that the body 
 is the really attractive part of a trout fly, and that in a 
 floater a hackle which is sufficient to ensure adequate 
 flotation, and is otherwise colourless and inconspicuous, 
 serves its purpose best. A good cock's hackle, such as is 
 used for floating flies, is extremely sharp and bright when 
 held up to the light, and even in the ruddy shades lets but 
 little colour through. There can, however, be no harm, 
 and it is probably safer, if the hackle, as held to the light, 
 bears a fairly close resemblance in colour to the legs of the 
 fly which its pattern represents. 
 
 A winged floater, hackled all down the body with cock's 
 
 17 
 
130 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 hackles to represent a sedge — or even a similar pattern 
 without wings — is probably taken for a fluttering sedge 
 by reason of the " buzz " effect. 
 
 A floater hackled with a sharp cock's hackle at the 
 shoulder only, and without wings, is probably the best 
 method of suggesting a spinner, spent or still living. The 
 wings of the natural spinner have an iridescent glitter 
 which is well suggested by the extended fibres of a first- 
 rate rusty or honey or blue dun cock's hackle. Such a hackle 
 thus serves (beyond the purpose of breaking the fly's fall) 
 the double purpose of flotation and of imitation of wings. 
 
 A floater may, especially in the minute sizes of fly, be 
 dressed with a soft feather, and may be made to float 
 long enough for practical purposes without oiling. Here 
 the hackle serves the purpose of flotation and of imitation 
 of wings and legs. I have often floated a No. oo Dotterel 
 dun, perfectly dry, over a trout when there has been a rise of 
 pale watery duns, and have found it very killing, particularly 
 in eddies under the far bank. The soft tips of the hackle 
 cause it to make a far less alarming drag than does a cock's 
 hackle. 
 
 Semi-submerged, the fly tied with bright cock's hackle 
 at the shoulder only, and a seal's fur or Tup's Indispensable 
 body of suitable colour, represents a spent spinner often 
 in the most fatal way. Here the hackle enables the fly, 
 the body of which is waterlogged, to cling to the surface. 
 
 Now we reach the sunk flies, and we shall find these 
 present still more complex propositions, according to the 
 way in which the fly is presented to the fish. 
 
 Fished directly upstream, a wet fly (whether winged or 
 not), which is hackled with a stiff cock's hackle, has thrown 
 away one of its chief advantages, the mobility of the hackle. 
 In fact, one might be inclined to think that, if a hackle were 
 not needed to break the fall or to suggest life, such a fly might 
 
SOME MORE FLY DRESSING 131 
 
 best be dressed without a hackle. A hen's hackle, or a small 
 bird's hackle, would respond to every moment of the current, 
 and would thus suggest an appearance of life in action, which 
 is very fascinating. The Yorkshire hackles and Stewart's 
 famous trio of " spiders," so called, are based on this theory. 
 What these flies really represent cannot always be certainly 
 predicated. Doubtless the hackles in some cases suggest 
 the wings and legs of hatched-out insects, drowning or 
 drowned and tumbled by the current, and in others they 
 suggest some nondescript, struggling subaqueous creature. 
 In either case the mobility suggests life. 
 
 Nevertheless, an upstream wet-fly man, however keen on 
 that method, does not always cast directly upstream, but 
 more often up and across, and occasionally across. When 
 he casts across or up and across, and holds his rod-top so as 
 to bring his team of flies as nearly as possible perpendicu- 
 larly across the current, a new set of considerations arises. 
 The droppers, catching the stream more than does the gut 
 cast, are drawn down with head upstream and tail down- 
 stream in advance of the gut cast. Here soft hackles are apt 
 to be drawn back so as completely to enfold the body of the 
 fly, with the points of the fibres flickering softly beyond the 
 bend of the hook, thus suggesting a nymph vainly attempt- 
 ing to swim against the current. The top dropper may 
 be dibbing on the surface, thus suggesting an ovipositing 
 fly. Here the hackle represents the wings of the natural 
 fly in active motion. In these conditions cock's hackles, 
 whether dressed at shoulder only or palmerwise, are apt 
 to impart motion to the wings and body, and to suggest 
 life in this way rather than by their own motion, as do 
 soft hackles. The resilience of a first-rate cock's hackle 
 is great, and every exertion of it must react upon the fly's 
 body, which it surrounds, and impart a motion which, 
 whether lifelike in the sense of resembling the motions of 
 
132 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 some particular insect, or not, at least is sufficient to attract 
 the attention and excite the rapacity or tyranny of the 
 trout if it does not appeal to his appetite. This was the 
 Devonshire theory that produced that priceless, but, alas ! 
 vanishing, strain of Old English blue game fowls. 
 
 We now come to the down-stream methods. Here we 
 find the considerations which apply to across-stream 
 methods present in even greater force, because the re- 
 sistance of the rod-top, which holds the line as it swings 
 the flies across the current, brings the current to bear upon 
 the flies far more strongly than is the case when the angler 
 is fishing across and up. For this reason, flies for this 
 type of fishing should be dressed with a specially " good 
 entry," so as not to skirt. Winged flies should have the 
 wings low and fitting close over the back, and hackled flies 
 should have good sharp cock's hackles, or, if hackled with 
 hen's hackles or soft hackles, should have them supported 
 by a wad of dubbing behind the hackle at the shoulder, 
 so as to get the maximum of work out of them. By the 
 across and down-stream method the top dropper may be. 
 made to dib more readily than by any other, thus imitating 
 either spinner or sedge ovipositing. 
 
 To sum up, the fly dresser must think how and where 
 his fly is to be used when he dresses it, and hackle it accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 THE SPADE FEATHER. 
 
 It has often been a matter of surprise to me to notice 
 what trashy feathers so many professional dressers use for 
 the whisks of their trout flies, and that one practically 
 never sees the best feathers for the purpose used. 
 
 It is not suggested that stiff and bright hackles are 
 always necessary for whisks. A soft feather has advan- 
 tages for a sunk fly intended to represent a nymph. But 
 
SOME MORE FLY DRESSING 133 
 
 a bright, sharp, stiff feather undoubtedly assists flotation, 
 and far better for the purpose than the saddle hackle so 
 often used is the spade-shaped shoulder hackle of a cock 
 of suitable colour in its finest fettle, especially for 
 spinners. 
 
 There is no difficulty about getting such feathers of 
 excellent quality in all the common colours. The fowl 
 has to be obtained before it has been plucked. That is 
 all. A very few feathers will go a long way. They stand 
 out straight, and should not be tied in so as to cock up. 
 Being sharp and bright they throw the water well, and 
 give as much help in floating a fly as a number of turns of 
 hackle at the shoulder. 
 
 BUZZ. 
 
 A good deal of cheap scorn has been wasted upon the 
 excessive number of legs given by fly dressers to the arti- 
 ficial fly to ensure flotation, particularly to the Sedges. 
 I would ask, how often is it that the hackles of flies are taken 
 for legs ? Many of the sedges flutter upon the surface; 
 and may not the saying that they are dressed " buzz " 
 be wiser than it looks ? The effect of fluttering and the 
 effect of a bush of hackles may not look so dissimilar to 
 the trout. Palmers, I have no doubt, are as often taken 
 for struggling sedge flies as for the woolly bears and other 
 caterpillars they are fancifully supposed to represent. 
 
 Then from certain points of view a good sharp cock's 
 hackle with the light through it is nothing but sheer sparkle. 
 It has no appearance of solidity at all, and it may be doubted 
 whether the fish sees much of it as leg at all. It may 
 merely give an effect of translucency to the wings. This 
 is, no doubt, one reason why high quality in hackles is so 
 desirable. 
 
134 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 A GOOD ENTRY. 
 
 This is frankly a fly-dresser's, and, what is more, a 
 wet-fly dresser's section. The subject is a very practical 
 one. A natural insect, whether in nymph or other stage, 
 does not, when maintaining itself against the stream or 
 being carried down by it, resisting or unresisting, skirt or 
 carry bubbles with it, and it may be inferred that an 
 artificial fly which does either of these things is apt to 
 offend so sensitive a fish as the trout and to put him off 
 his feed. It is held, therefore, that a trout fly which is 
 intended to swim against the stream in however slight 
 a degree while being carried down by it ought to have 
 what is called " a good entry "; that is, it ought to be 
 so constructed as to swim with the smoothness of a nymph 
 or small fish, and not to skirt, or to cause or carry bubbles. 
 The commonest cause of such a defect in an artificial fly 
 is too big and clumsy a head. This is the reason why an 
 artificial wet fly usually has a head much smaller in pro- 
 portion than that of the natural fly. It is also a reason 
 why eyed hooks are not so suitable as blind hooks for 
 small trout flies, the eye and knot combining to make a 
 disproportionately bulky head. But a small head alone 
 will not ensure a good entry for a winged fly or for a fly 
 with stiff hackles. A soft-hackled fly adjusts itself easily 
 to the action of the water, but a fly with stiff, staring, 
 upright wings or hackles may easily cause such a disturb- 
 ance in the water as to give proof of a bad entry. The 
 lines, therefore, on which an artificial wet fly that is to 
 be fished against the stream in any way is built ought to 
 be fine, like the lines of a yacht or swift boat, or high- 
 class motor, sloping backwards, so as to offer the least 
 possible resistance to the current, and such resistance 
 as there is should be elastic. The fly ought to be equal 
 
SOME MORE FLY DRESSING 135 
 
 on both sides, so as to balance accurately and to swim 
 smoothly, and any excess of bulk is to be deprecated. 
 
 It is not only the fly fished down-stream, or across and 
 down, which hangs against the stream. A dropper on an 
 upstream cast does so too if the angler be handling his 
 rod as he should. By keeping the rod point forward and 
 drawing it to right or left, so as to ensure the cast of flies 
 swinging as soon as possible perpendicularly athwart the 
 stream, the angler ensures that each of his droppers is 
 drawn by the current so as to come over the water he is 
 fishing in advance of the cast to which it is attached. The 
 more smoothly the fly comes, the more perfectly it suggests 
 a natural insect. Hence the importance of a good entry. 
 It may be suggested that GreenwelTs Glory, constructed 
 with split wings, set upright and rather forward, and yet 
 a very successful fly, cannot be said to be consistent with 
 this principle. The answer is that GreenwelTs Glory so 
 tied is a point fly for upstream fishing, and should never be 
 fished with a drag against the stream. 
 
 QUALITY IN FLY-DRESSING MATERIALS. 
 
 About the work of even the poorest and shoddiest 
 professional fly dresser there is a certain snap and certainty 
 of execution to which the best amateur but seldom attains. 
 Yet in two respects even the best professional work falls 
 short of that of the competent amateur — knowledge of the 
 effect that he is groping after and command of the materials 
 to produce it. It occasionally happens (as in the case of 
 the late Mr. R. S. Austin) that the professional is also an 
 amateur, with first-hand knowledge of the river and its 
 flies, and then the supremely good work may be attained 
 if, as in his case, his conscience will not let him put up 
 with and issue to his customers inadequate materials. 
 
 It may be that it is not possible for the houses that 
 dress flies in bulk to obtain the requisite materials in 
 
136 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 adequate quantity — at any rate with their present re- 
 sources — and that they are thus driven to fall back upon 
 dyed and faked substitutes; but even so there is little 
 excuse for the wretchedly poor material which many houses 
 are content to foist upon their customers. The only way 
 to account for it is the excuse offered by Dr. Johnson for 
 a gross blunder in his dictionary: " Sheer ignorance, 
 madam, sheer ignorance." Anyone who, knowing any- 
 thing about hackles, goes over the stock picked on the 
 markets for the wholesale houses, may well be astonished 
 to see the trash that they are content to buy at a penny a 
 neck or less — badly selected and badly picked, wretched 
 in quality, shape, colour, and condition, and actually 
 omitting the bulk of the best and most valuable small 
 hackles in the neck. Honestly, it would pay them better 
 to exercise a liberal right of rejection, and to pay four or 
 six times as much for carefully, competently chosen, and 
 adequately picked stuff. Again and again, when I have 
 lit upon a packet containing the pickings of a beautiful 
 blue dun cock I have found that there is scarcely a feather 
 fit to tie a fly as small as No. i, and that what there are 
 are twisted in plucking and often foul with blood. Reds 
 are picked in bulk in the same way, and with a reckless 
 disregard of size, under-colour, texture, brightness, quality. 
 And so with gingers and the rest. Occasionally I have 
 dropped on to an excellent honey-dun hen unplucked 
 because the poulterer's man did not know enough to see 
 it was worth while. 
 
 The same ignorance which pervades the ranks of the 
 poulterer's men is to be found putting in its deadly work 
 among the professional fly dressers. The mechanical part 
 of their art may be, and often is, excellently done, but if 
 the dresser does not know what effects he is aiming at, 
 how is he to know how to get them, or how important it 
 is to have the material right and high in quality ? There 
 
SOME MORE FLY DRESSING 137 
 
 are many books which profess to teach fly dressing, but 
 none that I am aware of (except Cut cliff e's — this only to 
 a limited extent) that tells the dresser what effects he is 
 to aim at, and how, and why; and it may be doubted if 
 more than one here and there has any idea of what he or 
 she is purporting to express. Even if given the natural 
 insect to dress to, it may be doubted if the dresser realizes 
 that it is a semi-translucent being that he is reproducing 
 or seeking to reproduce, and he must, therefore, either 
 reproduce by means of his materials the effects of trans- 
 mitted light, or, if his materials be necessarily dense, like 
 quill, he must get or suggest by reflection from the surface 
 of his material the effect of transmitted light. If the body 
 of a real spinner be held to the light, it looks very different 
 from the same insect looked down upon and seen only by 
 reflected light, but it is rare to see an attempt made to 
 reproduce the effect of transmitted light by translucency 
 of material or by reflection from an opaque surface. The 
 tendency is, almost necessarily, to reproduce unintelligently 
 stereotyped patterns which go on diverging further and 
 further from type. And when this is done with poor 
 materials which are dull in colour, and poor in translucency, 
 texture, and quality, and when, to crown all, hackles are 
 cut, it is little to be wondered at that the trout so often 
 exercises the prerogative of rejection. In the days when 
 anglers habitually dressed their own flies there were to be 
 had hackles and dubbings, but especially poultry hackles, 
 such as neither love nor money can buy nowadays. And 
 it is because I want to see things go back to the conditions 
 of the palmy days that I would like anglers to learn, at 
 any rate, to dress their own flies not merely as a mechanical 
 art, but as a means of rendering in colours the effects 
 which, so far as man can judge, the natural insect produces 
 upon the eye of the trout. 
 
 18 
 
IV 
 SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 
 
 WHAT MADE THE DRY FLY POSSIBLE. 
 
 In the pleasant pages of " Chalk Stream and Moorland," 
 Mr. Harold Russell, in tracing the early history of the 
 dry fly, comments on it as somewhat strange that fishing 
 with a floating fly did not become general in Southern 
 England many years earlier than it did, but he does not 
 advance what I conceive to be the true reason. The use 
 of the dry fly connotes the ability of the angler to fish 
 upstream whatever the state of the wind. The clearness 
 of the chalk stream required the casting of a longer line 
 than was necessary on rough streams. The silk and hair 
 lines which, prior to the coming of the American braided 
 oiled silk lines, were the best that could be produced could 
 not be cast into an adverse wind. They could be cast 
 upstream with the wind, across-stream with the wind, and 
 down-stream with the wind, but, as a general proposition, 
 casting against the wind was beyond them. A fly cast 
 upstream or across with the wind might very well float 
 or sink — in either case it might be taken by the trout — 
 but a fly cast down-stream was bound to sink. So as 
 anglers had to make their account with fishing down-stream, 
 their flies were dressed to sink. And as any violence in 
 striking when the fly is down-stream is apt to be visited 
 with a smash, rods, though built long to fish far off, had 
 to be floppy in the top to ensure gentle striking. The 
 
 138 
 
SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 139 
 
 result was also the keeping light of the reel line, and thus 
 was produced a combination which, exquisite in its way, 
 was the very worst that could be conceived for dry-fly 
 fishing. Stewart preached the stiff rod and the upstream 
 cast, but his was necessarily a short cast. The things 
 which made the dry fly generally possible were the coming 
 of the heavy American braided oiled silk line and the 
 split-cane rod. I remember buying my first length of 
 oiled silk line in 1877, but I knew so little of its purpose 
 that I used it for sea fishing, and it was, I think, in the 
 eighties that, stimulated by American progress in the 
 building of split-canes, our makers began to build split-canes 
 suitable for carrying these heavy lines. The heavy line 
 was needed to deliver the fly dry and to put it into the 
 wind, the split-cane, or a wood rod on the same lines, was 
 necessary to deliver the heavy line. With the hour came 
 the men, Mr. H. S. Hall, Mr. G. S. Marryat, and Mr. F. M. 
 Halford, who evolved from the poor feeble types of dry 
 fly of the seventies the efficient dry fly of the eighties and 
 the present day. 
 
 THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE WET FLY. 
 
 I have been trying for some time past — but hitherto in 
 vain — to discover the precise moment of time when the 
 theory that it was not sportsmanlike, and therefore not 
 permissible, to fish with the wet fly upon chalk streams 
 was given to a reverently awaiting world, and who was the 
 prophet from whose lips the words of wisdom fell. I recall 
 some years ago seeing it propounded in the Press — I 
 believe in the Fishing Gazette — that it was a rule upon 
 chalk streams that the dry fly only must be employed, 
 and I remember being not a little amused, for up to that 
 time, though fishing quite a noted length of a crack chalk 
 stream, and meeting upon it many excellent fishers with 
 
140 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 the fly, I had never heard the theory propounded by any 
 one of them. True that almost without exception, as I 
 myself at the time, they fished dry, but that was because 
 they believed that thus they were more likely to be 
 successful. Frequently, and perhaps more often than not, 
 that would be so; but they made the error of mistaking 
 the particular — the frequent particular, the pretty general, 
 if you will — for the universal, and I believe that, if once 
 they had been convinced that it was not always the dry 
 fly that paid best, but that on parts of most days the wet 
 fly, properly applied, was the more attractive, they were 
 open-minded enough to be ready to reconsider their practice 
 on its merits, and would still be so but for the edict that 
 the wet fly was anathema on chalk streams. Yet, though 
 I laughed, the writer was right and I was wrong. So 
 perhaps I may be forgiven if I take up a little space in 
 examining the question historically, to see just what it 
 all means, and to discover, if possible, how it came about. 
 
 Whatever may be the present state of chalk-stream 
 opinion on the subject, there can be little doubt that, in 
 its inception, the dry fly was not adopted for any other 
 reason than that it was found to pay — that is, to kill trout 
 which would not yield to the seductions of the wet fly as 
 then practised. Francis Francis was a broad-minded 
 angler, with ample experience of wet-fly fishing, whose 
 period comprised the early days of the dry fly, and, writing 
 with a knowledge of both, he used, in his " Book of 
 Angling," these wise words: "The judicious and perfect 
 application of dry, wet, and mid-water fishing stamps the 
 finished fly fisher with the hall-mark of efficiency." What 
 was it that led chalk-stream angling opinion so far from 
 these ideals ? The words quoted by me are quoted with 
 approval by Mr. F. M. Halford in chapter xi. of " Dry- 
 Fly Fishing in Theory and Practice," headed, " Floating 
 
SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 141 
 
 Flies and Sunk Flies." That chapter is written with the 
 fair-mindedness and intellectual honesty which charac- 
 terizes everything that came from his pen. And yet I 
 think I detect in that chapter, and in that volume, much 
 that has lent support to the tendency of thought which 
 we are inquiring into. It was there argued at considerable 
 length and with much acuteness that on chalk streams the 
 wet fly does not pay, that the dry fly is successful on these 
 streams when the sunk fly is utterly hopeless. It is not 
 suggested that it is wicked to use the wet fly, only that 
 it is ineffectual. But, in order to test this argument, it is 
 necessary to see what Mr. F. M. Halford meant by the 
 wet fly. Let me quote his exact words : 
 
 " The sunk fly is an imitation of the larva, or nymph, 
 moving in the water, or of a winged insect when water- 
 logged or drowned. . . . 
 
 " With the sunk or wet fly he (the angler) casts to a 
 likely place, whether he has or has not seen a rise there 
 (more frequently he has not), and, in fact, his judgment 
 should tend to tell him where, from his knowledge of the 
 habits of the fish, they are most likely to be found in 
 position or likely to feed. Thus wet-fly fishing is often 
 termed ' fishing the water/ in contradistinction to the 
 expression ' fishing the rise,' which is applied to the method 
 of the dry-fly fisherman." 
 
 Mr. Halford, therefore, understood wet-fly fishing as fish- 
 ing at large all over the water as against fishing the rise. 
 Would he at that time have objected (had it occurred to him 
 to do so) to a wet-fly fisherman confining himself to fishing 
 the rise, or the located fish, with the wet fly ? I can 
 hardly think so. He was more open-minded than that. He 
 said, in the same chapter which I have quoted : 
 
 " Some dry-fly fishermen are such purists that they will 
 not, under any circumstances whatever, make a single cast 
 
142 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 except over rising fish, and prefer to remain idle the entire 
 day rather than attempt to persuade the wary inhabitants 
 of the stream to rise at an artificial fly, unless they have 
 previously seen a natural one taken in the same position. 
 Although respecting their scruples, this is, in my humble 
 opinion, riding the hobby to death, and I for one am a strong 
 advocate for floating a cocked fly over a likely place, even 
 if no movement of a feeding fish has been seen there. . . . 
 There is no doubt that an angler catching sight of a trout 
 or grayling lying near the surface, or in position for feeding, 
 can often tempt him with a good imitation of the fly on 
 the water floated accurately over him at the first cast." 
 
 Would he have denied to the wet-fly man — had he 
 believed that the wet fly paid — -the same privilege as he 
 would accord to the dry-fly man ? I see no reason to 
 suppose so. But it will have been seen from these 
 quotations that at that time at any rate the idea of the 
 wet fly being used much as the dry fly, and cast only to 
 rising fish, to fish seen " hovering " in position to feed, 
 and to likely places carefully chosen, had apparently not 
 occurred to him. In fact, the comparison which he has 
 made is between the dry-fly practice of chalk streams and 
 the unintelligent wet-fly practice of rough rivers, applied, 
 if you like, to chalk streams, and not between dry-fly 
 practice and wet-fly practice deliberately thought out and 
 adapted to use on chalk streams. 
 
 He says of the wet fly, it is true, "It is said that there 
 are days when, even in the clearest of them, the sunk fly 
 is found more killing than the floating one. This may 
 possibly be true, but in many years' experience such days 
 have not fallen to my lot, and I should be inclined to 
 consider them as happening ones, or, in other words, as 
 the rare exceptions which go to prove the rule." 
 
 I propose to give later on my reasons for doubting 
 
SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 143 
 
 whether, with his special dry-fly equipment, Mr. F. M. 
 Halford often made the whole-hearted experiments essential 
 to bring this comparison to a real test. 
 
 He never believed the wet fly on a chalk stream would 
 pay, and in his autobiography, published in 1903, he gives 
 an account of a week's fishing of the Test by a very skilled 
 Yorkshire angler of my acquaintance, which leads him to 
 the same conclusion. Here it is: 
 
 '* I was much interested, some years since, watching a 
 first-rate wet-fly man, a Yorkshire fisherman, on a portion 
 of the Upper Test. His flies were Olive Quills of various 
 shades, Iron blues, Red Quills, and such patterns, all of 
 which he used on his native streams, and were dressed 
 with peacock quill bodies, very meagre upright wings, and 
 a single turn of hen hackle for legs. He did not in any 
 way practise the ' chuck-and-chance-it plan,' but moved 
 slowly upstream, carefully studying the set of the current, 
 and quickly deciding where a feeding fish should be in each 
 run. Sometimes it would be close under the bank, some- 
 times on the edge of a slack place, and sometimes on the 
 margin of an eddy. 
 
 " Whenever he had made up his mind as to the most 
 likely place, there he would make one, or at most two, light 
 casts, placing his fly with great accuracy and letting it 
 drift down without drag. Now this, I take it, was the 
 best possible imitation of the work of a dry-fly fisherman, 
 except that he had not spotted the fish and his fly was not 
 floating in the dry-fly sense. His patterns were very 
 similar in size, colour, and form to those of the ordinary 
 chalk-stream fisherman. He used very fine drawn gut, and 
 worked hard from morning to evening, never passing over 
 a likely place without putting a fly into it, and very seldom 
 losing a hooked fish. 
 
 " It was in the early part of April, during strong westerly 
 
144 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 and south-westerly winds, when the hatch of duns was 
 sparse, and when, in fact, all conditions were favourable 
 to the sunk and unfavourable to the floating fly. He 
 fished six days on a well-stocked reach of the river, and 
 killed in the aggregate seven trout weighing nine pounds. 
 Candidly, I was somewhat surprised at the good result, 
 and have often wondered whether he could repeat the 
 performance. Of course, the average weight of the fish, 
 one and a quarter pounds, was very small for the Test, and 
 two or three of them would have been returned by many 
 dry-fly fishermen. 
 
 " Let it be clearly understood, however, that this fisher- 
 man was most skilful and painstaking, a^nd was a past- 
 master in the art of selecting the right spot, and in placing 
 his fly accurately and delicately there at the first attempt. 
 Had he merely fished the river up or down, or had he 
 bungled his cast or moved about rapidly, or, in fact, made 
 any mistakes, I do not believe he would have killed a single 
 trout; so that his bag represents the best possible result 
 under existing conditions for a wet-fly fisherman on a 
 stream like the Upper Test." 
 
 The points which strike me about this account are these : 
 (i) That the Yorkshire angler fished "from morning to 
 evening " at a time of year when two hours, and often less, 
 will cover the time of the take; (2) that we are not told 
 that the Yorkshire angler ever cast to a rising fish or a 
 bulging fish, but only to likely places; (3) what would have 
 been the score assuming the Yorkshire angler had had, in 
 addition to his own special skill and equipment, Mr. Hal- 
 ford's knowledge of the water and the position of its fish ? 
 (4) a week at a time of year when the time of the take is so 
 limited is a short time for even the most accomplished 
 angler to get on terms with a strange and notoriously 
 difficult river. 
 
SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 145 
 
 But we have it here again, not that the wet fly is wicked, 
 but that it does not pay. 
 
 Now, where in the writings of any angling authority do 
 we get it laid down that the wet fly is wicked, and that the 
 high-and-dry school are entitled to look down from a height 
 of ethical superiority upon those who can, and do, alternate 
 wet with dry? I have looked in vain. 
 
 Viscount Grey, at p. 123 of "Fly Fishing," says: 
 w Some dry-fly anglers may have spoken of wet-fly fishing 
 as a ' chuck-and-chance-it ' style, by which small fish are 
 caught easily in coloured water on coarse tackle. Some 
 wet-fly anglers, on the other hand, may have expressed a 
 belief that all the talk about dry flies is superfluous, and 
 that large, well-fed trout, in clear, smooth water, can be 
 caught by the methods skilfully applied which are suc- 
 cessful in North-Country rivers. If there be any angler 
 on either side who still holds such opinions, he can but be 
 advised to put them to the test in practice, and so bring 
 himself to a more just frame of mind." 
 
 Not a word, be it observed, of deprecation of the wet 
 fly because it is wicked, but merely that it does not pay. 
 He goes on: " I have known and tried enough of the wet 
 fly to be sure that the use of it has very narrow limits in a 
 pure chalk stream, well-fished, where the season does not. 
 begin till May." If Viscount Grey does not mean that he has 
 tried it in chalk streams, his evidence does not go very 
 far. If he does mean it, he clearly does not deprecate it 
 on any ground except that it is not effective. 
 
 Mr. H. S. Hall, in the Badminton Library, is silent on the 
 subject, beyond suggesting that there is no hope for the 
 chalk-stream angler in anything but the dry fly. 
 
 Mr. G. A. B. Dewar, again, in the " Book of the Dry Fly," 
 compares the dry fly on streams to which it is peculiar 
 with the wet fly on rough streams, and fails, for some reason 
 
 19 
 
146 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 unexplained, to compare or contrast it with the wet fly 
 on what, for brevity, we may call dry-fly streams; but he 
 has not a word of deprecation for the wet fly, except on the 
 ground that it does not pay. 
 
 I have searched a number of more recent writers for 
 light and leading on the subject, but in vain. It may be 
 that there are papers in the Field and other journals which 
 may throw more light on the subject, but I do not recall 
 them, and I have not the means at hand of making a 
 search. 
 
 The fact, however, remains that there is or was a body 
 of opinion hostile to any use of the wet fly upon chalk 
 streams, and apt to claim a higher ethical standard than 
 is enough for those who do not object to fish these rivers 
 on suitable occasions with a wet fly; and it would be in- 
 teresting to see how it came into being. I suspect the 
 evolution was much as follows: 
 
 The necessity of casting upstream in all weathers evolved 
 the heavy tapered line, and that again seemed to neces- 
 sitate, and did in fact evolve, the heavy rod and the 
 double-dressed floater. This equipment was quite unsuited 
 to wet-fly fishing, and so employed was quite as likely to 
 result in scaring the fish as in catching them. Then wet- 
 fly fishing, in the sense of casting across or across and down 
 stream a dragging fly, was apt to attract small fish, and to 
 result in their being hooked, or pricked, and scared. This 
 was undoubtedly bad for the water. Ergo, wet-fly fishing 
 is bad for the water, and ought to be barred. 
 
 This opinion became firmly rooted in many minds, and 
 no doubt it was easier to make a rule of no wet fly, 
 especially as the wet fly was not believed to pay, than to 
 make a distinction between wet fly according to knowledge 
 and mere wet fly. It was, no doubt, suggested and believed 
 that even a wet fly cast upstream to bulging fish was apt 
 
SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 147 
 
 to line them and scare them. (I believe this is quite incorrect, 
 for the trout must constantly be having weeds and other 
 matter brought down-stream quite as likely to touch and 
 scare it as the line, and would think nothing of a touch from 
 a line merely carried by the current.) So the wet fly 
 became anathema with some folk. In brief, it did not pay, 
 and it did harm. 
 
 But when it has come to be shown that, rightly fished 
 in the right conditions, it does pay, and does no harm, 
 unless adding to the angler's sport and the weight of his 
 basket be harm, the ground of objection is changed. It 
 is too deadly. It is as bad as worm-fishing or the use 
 of an Alexandra. It is not fly-fishing at all. 
 
 These violences defeat themselves. I am quite willing 
 to admit that whatever is unfair to the brother angler or 
 damaging to the water is rightly to be barred, but to say 
 that it is fair to cast a dry fly persistently over a bulging 
 trout with no genuine hope of getting him, and is unfair 
 to cast a sunk fly to him with a good chance of getting him, 
 seems to me absurd. The water is far more hammered 
 in the former case, and the education of the fish far more 
 likely to be advanced. Everyone who has fished hard- 
 fished waters knows how hardened trout become to being 
 cast to, how they will go on feeding gaily and never making 
 a mistake however often the dry fly is put over them. 
 Viscount Grey gives an excellent description of these 
 conditions in writing of his Winchester days. Yet such 
 fish will often succumb readily to a judicious wet fly, and 
 it is my contention that such fish are better out of the 
 water, to make room for others less over-educated. The 
 Germans know a great deal more about trout management 
 than we do, and their system is to keep the stock moving, 
 and to kill off the older stock quickly, to allow room for 
 growth of the younger fish. A fishery is like partridge or 
 
148 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 grouse lands. The stock of game, when not shot down, 
 quickly deteriorates in numbers and quality. So I put 
 it forward that if the wet fly used to supplement the dry 
 fly involves the more rapid killing off of the older stock, 
 it does good to the fishery and not harm. The only thing 
 to be guarded against is injury to the young stock, and 
 that may be done by prohibiting down-stream fishing with 
 a dragging wet fly. If the stock be found to be diminishing 
 too rapidly, the basket may be limited, but the angler who 
 only comes down for a day, which he would not have 
 chosen had he foreseen what it would be, has at least a 
 chance of putting some fish in his creel which the conditions 
 might otherwise have barred. 
 
 If I am right, the opponents of the wet fly fairly used 
 seem to be driven upon the argument that it is not fly fishing. 
 This is a mere Verbal distinction culled ad hoc, and as an 
 argument it leaves me cold. For generations wet-fly 
 fishing was the only fly fishing — on waters, too, where the 
 dry fly now reigns supreme — and in those days, if records 
 do not he, baskets were not inferior to the best of the 
 present day. And if a method of wet-fly fishing, which, 
 in the sense only of its giving one an added chance of trout, 
 and no other, is detrimental to the water, is a sin, then I 
 am quite content to remain in my iniquity with Kingsley 
 and Francis Francis, and a host of other good anglers, 
 and I deny the right of users of Wickham's Fancy, Gold- 
 ribbed Hare's ears, Pope's Nondescripts, Red Tags, 
 Macaw Tags, and Bumbles, and fancy flies generally, to 
 cast the first stone at me. The light rod, casting a medium 
 line, available for either dry fly or wet, and a supply of a 
 few patterns, specially dressed for sinking, in addition to 
 one's floater, render it possible for the angler to cast up- 
 stream to his trout dry fly or wet, as he may judge best, 
 with no more fear of injuring the young stock in the one 
 
SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 149 
 
 case than the other, and with an added chance of sport 
 by a method no whit less difficult or fascinating than 
 the dry fly. 
 
 THE CULTIVATION OF SHYNESS. 
 
 There are two kinds of shyness in trout — man-shyness, 
 which is the prerogative and part of the charm of the wild 
 fish, and gut-shyness, which is sheer sophistication. Man- 
 shyness is instinctive, but cases must be within the observa- 
 tion of every angler in which trout whose haunt is near 
 some stream of traffic of mankind, and whose food must be 
 taken under man's observation or not at all, get over it to 
 a surprising extent, and feed as readily under the eye of 
 the passer-by as if he were not present. The shyness of the 
 fish that is hammered by anglers is another kind of shyness. 
 It has two stages. The first is where he stops feeding when 
 cast to, the last is when he does not; and the last stage is 
 worse than the first, for it combines the wariness of the 
 first stage with the elimination of man-shyness, and the 
 contempt for his lures that is born of knowledge. 
 
 This is the stage in which the trout of the Old Barge at 
 Winchester, so feelingly described by Viscount Grey in his 
 chapters on his schooldays at Winchester, must un- 
 doubtedly have been when the most successful tactics were 
 to cover the rising fish time after time with the greatest 
 possible rapidity in the hope that, sooner or later, he would 
 make a mistake. It is perhaps impossible to hope that there 
 will not continue to be hard-fished public or club waters 
 in which these conditions prevail, but of the undesirableness 
 of such conditions there can be no question. Nor can there 
 be doubt of the cause. It is over-fishing or hammering, 
 and it is a condition only conspicuous, I think, on waters 
 known as dry-fly waters. That dry-fly fishing should make 
 trout more gut-shy than wet-fly fishing seems probable 
 
150 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 enough, inasmuch as the phenomenon of surface drag is 
 peculiar to the dry fly, and the under-water movement 
 of a wet fly may be attributed by the fish to the volition 
 of a live insect, whereas the draw of the gut on the surface 
 is an open betrayal of the guile. It is true that the opinion 
 used to be expressed by dry-fly anglers of immense experi- 
 ence and authority that the use of the wet fly on chalk 
 streams tends to make the trout shy more rapidly than does 
 the use of the dry fly; but I confess I have seen no facts 
 put forward to base such an opinion, and, indeed, the use 
 of the wet fly upon chalk streams was for years, until com- 
 paratively recently, so much of a dead letter that it is hard 
 to see whence these anglers have obtained the data to 
 justify such a pronouncement. Certainly neither the rods 
 nor flies used on the first-class dry-fly streams were until 
 recently in the least suitable to wet-fly practice, and they 
 are by no means universally so yet. On the other hand, the 
 experience of the hard-fished Scottish border streams, such 
 as the Tweed, tends to show that the persistent use of the 
 wet fly is nothing like so pernicious in its effect upon trout 
 as an even less constant and persistent application of the 
 dry fly. My own experience of chalk streams — much 
 less extensive, it is true, than that of the authorities re- 
 ferred to, but directed with some persistence to this in- 
 vestigation — points the same way. The dry-fly authority 
 rightly insists that in his angling the true sportsman should 
 abstain from adding needlessly to the already too advanced 
 education of our chalk-stream trout, and thus prejudicing 
 the chances of sport for the brother anglers who will follow 
 him on the water. But when he goes on to insist that this 
 proposition involves a restriction to the use of dry fly only, 
 I venture to think that the logic of this deduction is faulty. 
 The deduction should be that the chalk-stream angler should 
 not cast his fly without some reasonable hope of attracting 
 
SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 151 
 
 the trout to which he casts it. To lay down that he should 
 never cast without the certainty of killing would ensure 
 the extinction of chalk-stream trouting in a month. Now 
 to throw a dry fly to a bulging trout is to cast without 
 any reasonable hope of attracting the trout. I have done it 
 many times, and I ought to know. But to throw an ap- 
 propriate wet fly to a bulging trout is not to cast without 
 any reasonable hope of attracting the trout. I have done 
 it many times, and I ought to know. The former method 
 undoubtedly adds needlessly to the already too advanced 
 education of the trout. The other method involves giving 
 the subaqueous-feeding trout an opportunity of taking 
 the fly where he is engaged in taking his food, just as the 
 dry-fly method involves the giving to the surface-feeding 
 trout an opportunity of taking the fly where he is engaged 
 in taking his food. The exclusive dry-fly man is therefore 
 driven — and rightly driven — to deprecate casting the dry 
 fly to bulging trout, but he is not driven by any logic that 
 I have yet seen put forward to deprecate casting the wet fly 
 to subaqueous-feeding or even to surface-feeding trout. 
 
 Not only are there hours and occasions when the wet fly 
 make a sounder appeal to the trout than does the dry fly, but 
 also places ; and more incidents than one strongly confirma- 
 tory of this proposition have occurred within my own experi- 
 ence. The first I quote was in this wise : On a mid- July day 
 I sat down by the Itchen to wait for the beginning of the 
 time of the take. I occupied my time of waiting by putting 
 a fine muslin net over the ring of my landing-net, and making 
 a few forages in the celery bed at my feet. The net came up 
 wriggling with nymphs of various colours and sizes. I 
 selected from my stock an imitation dressed with bear's hair 
 and olive seal' s fur, which, when wet, looked likest to one type 
 of nymph, and put it in my cap. There was no bulging in 
 the morning, and the few fish which rose fed on the surface. 
 
152 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 In the afternoon I saw two fish feeding cautiously under 
 the edge of a long bank of cut weed which had effected a 
 lodgment along the opposite side of the river. Now I saw 
 at once that, if I cast a dry fly to either of these fish the 
 odds were long that there would be a drag ere the fly reached 
 him, and a needless addition to his already too advanced 
 education. I might, of course, have left those two fish 
 severely alone. But that nymph was in my cap, and 
 presently it was attached to the end of my line and dropped, 
 thoroughly wetted, an inch from the edge of the weed-bank, 
 and a foot or so above the lower trout. He was not a bit 
 scared until he had become attached to my line, which 
 took about one second, and then it did not matter so much. 
 Precisely the same thing occurred with the trout at the 
 other end of the weed-patch five or six yards farther up, and 
 I repeated the successful experiment at a second bank 
 of weeds a few yards higher. Now my alternatives were 
 these: (i) To cast a dry fly with no reasonable hope of 
 catching these trout, and every prospect of adding to their 
 education; (2) to leave them alone; (3) to do what I did. 
 And I leave it to the reader to say which was the reasonable 
 course to take. 
 
 The next incident, or, rather, pair of incidents, occurred 
 on one fast shallow, where the trout have the reputation of 
 being almost uncatchable. So they are with the dry fly, 
 for no skill — at any rate, none at my command — can 
 avail to prevent a drag being set up within a moment of 
 the delivery of a cast from the only position from which 
 it can be made with any hope of concealment. Yet one 
 morning, when there was a rise of tiny little pale duns, 
 and the fish on the shallow were bulging gaily, I killed 
 there in less than ten minutes a brace of handsome trout on 
 a tiny dotterel hackle dressed Stewart-wise on a No. 00 hook 
 to gut. Each took the fly eagerly. I detected no shyness 
 
SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 153 
 
 of the sunken fly, but a dry fly always put them down with 
 great suddenness. Then a moment later, on a smooth 
 length just above, there was a big trout rising under the 
 opposite bank, protected by the stump of a giant rush in 
 such a way that every fly put to him dry was bound to 
 swing across current with a drag at the moment of reaching 
 him. The Dotterel dun was still attached, and he took it at 
 the third offer, was hooked, and was played fifty or sixty 
 yards down from his holt, and finally lost just as he seemed 
 to be coming to net. 
 
 On another reach a day or two earlier I saw a fish of 
 good size lying out close to the surface, impudently visible, 
 with his nose almost against the edge of a tiny bed of 
 weeds which came to the surface. The result was that 
 directly a fly was floated down to the fish it either stopped 
 on the weed, or, if cast beyond it, swung round to his nose 
 or his back with an aggravated and vicious drag. What 
 that trout did not know about surface drag was not worth 
 knowing. He knew so much that it did not disturb him a 
 bit (the dry-fly man had hammered him into this condition, 
 mind you !), and he placidly went on with his feeding, 
 dropping a yard or so to take the natural flies which went 
 by him without drag on the far side of the weed. There 
 was a rise of blue-winged olive, and I selected a dotterel 
 hackle with a dubbed body, giving, when wet, much the 
 colour of the body of the natural insect. The fly, thoroughly 
 wet, was dropped a yard the other side of the weed-bed, 
 and it swung round under water towards our trout, who 
 immediately turned and took it in the most confid- 
 ing manner. He, unfortunately, kicked off, but that is 
 irrelevant for present purposes. The point is, he took 
 the fly. 
 
 I never saw a length on which it was harder to avoid a 
 drag, and all the trout had reached one or two stages 
 
 20 
 
154 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 in their education; either they knew all about drag and 
 despised it and went on feeding, or they knew enough about 
 the floating line to realize that it indicated the presence of 
 the enemy, and that it were wise to suspend feeding opera- 
 tions. Once convinced of this — too late in the rise to be 
 much use — I restored my Dotterel dun to its place, and 
 found it readily accepted by the only brace of trout to 
 which I was able to despatch it without making my 
 presence known. Now, if I were to listen to the voice of 
 authority, I should either abstain from casting a line to 
 any of these fish, because I should be adding needlessly to 
 the already too advanced education, etc., and so pre- 
 judicing, etc., or I should wait until the fish were well on, 
 and add to their education in drag and the other mysteries 
 of the dry fly. On the other hand, there was the alternative 
 of recalcitrancy, which I took. I can, and do, believe that 
 hammering fish with the dry fly does advance their educa- 
 tion, as nothing else will, but so far I have seen no scintilla 
 of proof that the use of the wet fly cast upstream to 
 feeding trout has anything like so disastrous an effect. 
 There is no question of wet versus dry fly. Each in its place 
 and used according to knowledge is surely the way of 
 wisdom. 
 
 SEMI-SUBMERGED, ETC. 
 
 On a Sunday afternoon at the end of May I had an 
 exceptional opportunity of observing the hatch of the 
 May fly on the Kennet. The light, the position in which 
 I sat, the swing of the full current at my feet, and the 
 clearness of the water after a long drought, all combined 
 to help me, and again and again I saw that exquisite 
 little water-miracle recur. The dull, inert, brownish body 
 of the nymph, swung down by the current from the swaying 
 tassels of the water-weed, coming slowly to the surface, till 
 
SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 155 
 
 somehow its head and thorax seemed to threaten to emerge. 
 Then the bursting of the brown skin of the thorax, the six 
 pale greenish legs gripping the surface, while the body 
 curled tail downwards in the water, as if to let the current 
 get a purchase on the sheath. Then simultaneously the 
 wings shooting up, the sheath coming away and floating 
 far down the current, and the fairy-like creature standing 
 with wings erect and upturned tail to drift down-stream, 
 it may be a few yards or only a few inches, before taking 
 flight for the meadows. These few inches or yards 
 represent the one opportunity the trout, dace, or chub has 
 of taking the May fly in the winged stage before, as spent 
 imago, the fly goes drifting down the stream, with wings 
 flat on the water, dead or in the throes of dissolution. 
 The chances, therefore, for the fish of taking the insect 
 in the nymphal stage are obviously much greater, and it 
 is little to be wondered at that, in the inert semi-submerged 
 nymph just about to hatch and in the spent, water-logged, 
 dying or dead spinner, the trout finds a far easier prey 
 than it does in the fidgety, fluttering, newly-hatched 
 May-fly which is so apt to disappoint him by taking wing 
 at the moment he puts up. 
 
 If these deductions be sound in the case of the green drake 
 and its spinners, they are probably equally sound in the 
 cases of all the other and far smaller upwinged flies, which, 
 in process of hatching, oviposition, and death follow the 
 same sequence of stages as the May fly. And this probably 
 is one good reason for the success of nymph-like, or spinner- 
 like, flies such as Tup's Indispensable, fished semi-sub- 
 merged. Dubbed with a body material which readily takes 
 up the water and fills with light, and busked with a hackle 
 which is enough to enable the fly to cling to the surface 
 film, such a pattern may well be taken, at one stage of the 
 fly's career, for the hatching nymph getting its head above 
 
156 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 water, and in a later stage for the spent spinner floating 
 down helpless or dead. Trout rise at spent gnats and fallen 
 spinner in a quiet, deliberate way, differing greatly from 
 the fierce rushing motions with which they bulge at the 
 ascending nymphs which they fear may escape them by 
 hatching and transfer to the air. 
 
 So far we have only dealt with the fly in the surface, and 
 not the fly under it, nor the fly over it, the wholly wet 
 and the wholly dry. On the subject of these, as well as 
 on the subject of the semi-submerged, the experiments 
 conducted by means of Dr. Francis Ward's under-water 
 observation chambers (of which experiments an account 
 appeared in the Field of May 4, 1912, and are recorded 
 at pp. 38 to 43 of this book) may shed a little needed 
 light. They show that the under-side of the surface 
 film outside a certain angle to the perpendicular above 
 the observer's eye acts as a mirror, and is impenetrable to 
 vision. That angle is 48 J degrees for the human observer, 
 but may, for all I know, be different for trout, and, again, 
 for other fish. But whatever that angle may be, outside 
 it the trout can only see those parts of the fly which 
 penetrate the surface film. Thus a sunk fly is visible to 
 a trout at any distance, a semi-submerged fly at quite a 
 considerable distance; a line floating and not breaking or 
 denting the surface, and a perfectly dry and floating fly 
 are not visible at all, except within the circle of which the 
 place where the perpendicular above the trout's head meets 
 the surface is the centre, and the angle of reflection indi- 
 cates the circumference. Within that circle a floating fly 
 looks remarkably clear, bright, and attractive, but if the 
 hook comes through the film it looks particularly gross 
 and obnoxious. 
 
 The deductions which may be drawn from these facts 
 are as follows: 
 
SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 157 
 
 1. An angler fishing with an entirely floating cast has an 
 advantage, in that the cast can only be seen within the 
 circle above described; and this applies equally whether 
 the fly itself be floating, semi-submerged or sunk, but — 
 
 2. The entirely floating fly itself can only be seen by the 
 trout if it passes over the fish within the charmed circle. 
 Within that circle it is extremely attractive, but the cast 
 must be extremely accurate. 
 
 3. A semi-submerged or sunk fly, being visible at a 
 greater distance, need not be so precisely accurately cast. 
 To counter-balance that, it is duller in general effect, and 
 the under-water part of the gut is visible. 
 
 4. Therefore, stouter gut may be used for dry-fly fishing, 
 or, to put it the other way on, finer gut is desirable for 
 fishing the wet fly, but not for fishing the semi-submerged. 
 
 5. To counteract the dulling effect of the water on the 
 sunk or semi-submerged fly something brightening is 
 needed, such as a gold tag or gold or silver ribbing, or, 
 better still, dubbing brightened with seal's fur or pig's 
 wool. 
 
 6. A not very perfectly-dried winged fly, which has 
 hackle and body as well as hook breaking through the 
 surface film, may very well be taken for a hatching 
 nymph. 
 
 There are probably other conclusions, but these are a 
 few to go on with. 
 
 WIND AND THE EVENING RISE. 
 
 When I think of all the wise things which for years and 
 years I have accepted from authorities and acted upon 
 in sheer innocence, I could swear — swear vehemently. 
 The number of times I have gone in of an evening because 
 of the thoroughly well-established fact that there can 
 be no evening rise unless the wind drops ! ! 
 
158 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 For many years, as many as I can remember during my 
 angling life, I have heard it laid down as the one certain 
 thing in the uncertain sport of fly fishing that with a 
 wind there could be no evening rise. Like a fool, I be- 
 lieved it without testing it, and many an afternoon have 
 I waited in anxiety for the drop of the breeze at sunset, 
 and when the drop has not arrived I have unshipped 
 my rod and turned my steps in disappointment home- 
 along. 
 
 It was only in 1916 that, accident having kept me on the 
 river awaiting the return of a friend long after sundown 
 on a gusty June evening, I found that the true proposition 
 probably is that there is no rise to a mere spinner-fall on 
 open water on a gusty evening. But if there be a hatch of 
 fly on a windy evening — and there is no obvious reason 
 why a night-hatching fly should not come out on a rough 
 evening, if a day-hatching fly can come out on a rough 
 morning or afternoon — it should be just as possible to get 
 sport as on a gusty morning. 
 
 It enrages me to think of all the good evenings' fishing 
 I have missed through believing the pundits. The moral 
 is, " Never believe a thing you are told about fishing until 
 you have proved it, not only once, but over and over 
 again." 
 
 The evening I refer to gave me three and a half brace 
 above the average weight for the water, and is recorded at 
 p. 205. The blue- winged olive was coming up well; I could 
 tell it by the big splurgy rises of the trout. Saturday, 
 June 23, 1 91 7, was just such another evening. I had been 
 down to look at the water between my arrival at four o'clock 
 (summer time) and an early dinner, and I had spotted the 
 blue-winged olive — the first of the season, the keeper said 
 — and had caught a brace with an imitation of the nymph, 
 but they were smallish fish, and I returned them. 
 
SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 159 
 
 The wind was then blowing briskly from the south, with 
 a faint shade of east in it, and in gusts. Fortunately its 
 general trend was upstream, and it served the length I 
 meant to fish fairly well, and I needed nothing more 
 powerful than my five-ounce nine-footer. My friend, 
 who accompanied me, was very depressed at the strength of 
 the wind and its obvious disinclination to drop spent at 
 sunset. But I recalled my experience of the preceding 
 year (repeated two or three times since) with a view to 
 comforting him, and he decided to stay on, though a 
 very doubting Thomas. 
 
 We waited on our separate beats, with such patience as 
 we could muster, from seven to half-past eight. The wind 
 certainly moderated a little, but it still blew briskly and 
 gustily, shifting a shade more to the east. About half -past 
 eight a small hatch of small pale watery olive, with an 
 admixture of July dun and of spinners, including some 
 jenny spinners, came down, and a quiet protected corner 
 enabled me to identify them. 
 
 A fish or two began to take quietly, some clearly taking 
 spinners, others nymphs of the pale watery olive, and oc- 
 casionally the hatched fly. Soon a big splurging rise said 
 plainly " blue- winged olive," and, knotting on a nymph 
 pattern with which I had been successful last year, I cast 
 to the fish. He came up at length and missed. In the 
 meantime another fish, two or three yards ahead, had 
 risen somewhat in the same way; but I suspected grayling, 
 and sure enough a few moments later an unmistakable 
 forked tail appeared and sent me on to the next fish. This 
 was rising in a corner, and was, I judged, taking small 
 spinner of some kind. He would not have my Blue-winged 
 Olive nymph, so I tried him in succession with Tup's 
 Indispensable and Jenny spinner. He came at both and 
 missed. Then he took a blue-winged olive with the 
 
160 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 unmistakable swirl, and a few minutes later an Orange 
 Quill was offered him, and had hardly lit on the water before 
 he had it. He put up a gorgeous fight, and proved to be 
 a sixteen-inch fish in excellent condition, and to weigh 
 one pound twelve ounces. 
 
 Two big fish were rising in the bend just above — distant a 
 longish cast from cover — and I wanted to try a pattern 
 of Blue-winged Olive which I had picked up the previous 
 year, and had had some success with. So I shifted back to 
 that pattern, and had both the fish up to it. But there must 
 have been something wrong about it, for both rose to it 
 without fastening. The same result occurring with each 
 of the next two fish I tackled, I put up a fresh Orange Quill 
 on a No. i hook, and put it to a fish feeding under the far 
 back above the bend. He was an exasperating fish, never 
 still a moment, and when I dropped my fly just in front 
 of a ring, he would rise above or below, or beyond or nearer 
 me, but always safely. At length the fly pitched right to 
 an inch, and next moment the battle was joined. He was 
 a lustier fish than the last, one inch shorter but two ounces 
 heavier, and I had to run him down one hundred and fifty 
 yards before I netted him out. 
 
 I did not take long to find another fish rising similarly, 
 but I must have made some mistake, for he went down. 
 The next fish, however, accepted the first offer and joined 
 his companions in the creel; he was only one pound six 
 ounces. It was then '9.35 p.m. 
 
 Then, though the fish went on rising for nearly another 
 half-hour, some change came over them; for though the 
 next fish took the fly quite resolutely, it did not fasten, 
 nor did the next. A very big fish, if I am any judge of a 
 rise, was working away, absorbing blue-winged olive, 
 with a smooth head-and-tail action, as regular as the ticking 
 of a clock ; but though I offered him every opportunity of 
 
SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 161 
 
 including my Orange Quill, he ignored it persistently for a 
 while, and then suddenly stopped. I ought to have 
 changed to a Spinner, but I had always supposed that the 
 Orange Quill was taken for a spinner, as it is in colour 
 so unlike the Blue- winged Olive, so I stuck to the Quill. 
 The next fish took the Quill, but he did not hold it, and the 
 line coming away with a jerk, went into a snarl, which 
 occupied ten minutes of the fast dying rise to unravel. 
 I had time to try two more risers, but neither had any 
 use for the Orange Quill, and at 10.5 p.m. it was all over, 
 and I was left with a leash of fish, a sense of failure and 
 bafflement. 
 
 ON THE ACCURACY OF AUTHORITIES. 
 
 Then I never suspected the dogma that an evening mist 
 puts the fish down for good, and for years and years I 
 have reeled up and gone home when the surface began 
 to smoke at night. Shall I do so again ? 
 
 On June 16 on the Itchen the blue-winged olive 
 began to come up in some quantity about eight o'clock, 
 and I expected to find the fish taking them freely. But 
 the moon was behind my hand, and I found every fish 
 stopping at once when I began to cast, and when nine 
 o'clock came the evening rise had yielded me nothing. 
 Then, creeping round the next bend, I saw the ominous 
 mist approaching, and I began to despair, as in duty bound. 
 I was, however, the wrong side of the river for leaving it 
 to go in, and I had to walk up the bank a mile or so to 
 reach a bridge. So I moved on to meet the mist. I had 
 not dismantled my rod, and presently I became aware of a 
 good trout rising in the middle, and apparently rising quite 
 well, despite the mist. The size and shape of the ring 
 showed that he was taking the blue-winged olive. So I 
 gave him my invariable prescription, the large Orange Quill. 
 
 21 
 
162 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 In vain. But he went on rising. He did not appear to be 
 taking flies on the surface. So I took off the Quill, tied on 
 a Pheasant tail on No. i hook, moistened it in my mouth 
 to make it sink and look like a nymph, and despatched it 
 to my trout. He was my trout all right, and the keeper 
 put his weight at two pounds two ounces. 
 
 Then I remembered that a bit farther up was a place 
 where I had seen a good trout as I went by in the morning, 
 and I approached it gingerly. Yes. Just a little farther 
 out in the stream than I expected a trout was rising busily. 
 He took my nymph the first time it reached him, and 
 after a battle royal he joined No. I in my bag. The two 
 fish were as like in size and make as two peas, and they 
 weighed two pounds two ounces each. I was pleased 
 enough at the moment, but when I think of all the sport 
 I have probably missed in the past by believing the 
 authorities, instead of finding out for myself about the 
 behaviour of trout in mist, I refrain from good words. 
 
 DRIFTWEED AND BAD ADVICE. 
 
 The days when weeds have been cut and are floating down 
 in quantity are sufficiently distressing to the angler who 
 must take his water-side pleasures when he can. But even 
 on them, despite fouling of line and fly, one may oc- 
 casionally manage to pick up some sport with the aid of a 
 tinselled fly, such as a Pink Wickham or a Pope's Non- 
 descript. 
 
 But when the cutting is over and the stream is free of 
 weeds, except such as are caught against the banks, though 
 for a day or two the trout have left their usual hovers 
 and are nervous and uneasy, it is quite possible for one 
 who makes it his business to get at the reason of things to 
 fill a modest basket in the course of the day. 
 
SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 163 
 
 To begin with, the bottom, or much of it, has been shaved, 
 often too bare, and the weeds in which the trout used to 
 shelter and over which they used to hover, conscious of 
 shelter in case of need, and all the bolder for that conscious- 
 ness, are not in their places. Yet shelter the trout must 
 have, and so the piles of weed which make little rafts hitched 
 against the banks are pretty sure finds. The cut weeds 
 will hold quite a supply of insect food, and in the absence 
 of a hatch of fly the trout may still be on the alert under 
 their shelter for such nymphs and other small peoples as 
 leave the haven of the weed-jam. Thus a nymph pattern, 
 well submerged and drifted close along the edge of the 
 weed-rafts preferably under the far bank, is quite likely 
 to be taken, and the floating part of the gut, drawn 
 suddenly under, will give the angler his cue. For this game 
 the long patches of cut weed should preferably be picked. 
 Under one's own bank the game is not quite so easy, but 
 it can be done. There is another alternative, however; 
 and a small Sedge deftly floated along the edge of the patch 
 is often surprisingly remunerative. 
 
 Before approaching such a patch, however, from below 
 one should spend a little time watching the eddy just down- 
 stream of it. Then, if there is, or has been, any recent 
 rise or fall of fly, little fleets lie becalmed or circling slowly, 
 and the trout venture out and cruise among them, picking 
 up one here and there. Here the drag is often difficult 
 to negotiate, so a wet Tup's Indispensable or a small wet 
 Alder will generally prove better policy than a floater. 
 
 Again, above the weed and close to the bank, there is 
 another hopeful spot, especially if there be a small rise of 
 little duns. Hidden right under the weed-pile a good 
 trout will often lie, putting up his nose an inch or two 
 above the weed-pile to intercept the small olive. He cannot 
 see the angler, and is often surprisingly unsuspicious 
 
164 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 of guile if the first cast be delivered aright. One may 
 find a string of weed-rafts under one's own bank all thus 
 tenanted, especially if there be only a light wind and that 
 upstream. One must expect in such circumstances a 
 large proportion of failures, as if the fly be not taken 
 the first time it is apt to catch in the weed-pile and put the 
 trout down. The fly may, however, often be rescued, 
 not by drawing, but by a forward and downward switching 
 action, which picks up the fly upstream of the weed-pile, 
 and carries it into the air before it is drawn backwards for 
 the next cast. 
 
 Sometimes just after weed-cutting there are curious 
 collectings of nymphs just under water in bays under the 
 bank. One sees not a fly on the surface, but the trout are 
 feeding hard all the time, and if you catch one and open 
 him his stomach will be found to contain nymphs in 
 quantity and no winged duns. In such conditions a tin- 
 selled nymph is more likely to attract attention than a 
 closer imitation of the nymph disclosed by the autopsy. 
 The closer imitation is likely to pass unnoticed in the crowd. 
 In these conditions the trout, though apparently well on 
 the feed, are extremely difficult. A small black Alder will, 
 however, sometimes do the trick after the May weed- 
 cutting. 
 
 When evening draws on the trout venture out more freely, 
 and are to be found rising wherever the current will bring 
 them duns or spinners, and if one finds the right fly one is 
 more apt to get sport than at any other time of day, 
 though it is not so interesting, nor does it call for the 
 exercise of so much intelligence. One recent May evening 
 I rose and touched no less than eighteen trout under 
 these conditions. The Tup's Indispensable brought them 
 up, but was not quite right. There had been iron blue 
 during the day, and it may have been taken for the jenny 
 
SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 165 
 
 spinner, but it was the other sex, the claret spinner, that 
 was being taken. For when at length a seaTs-fur-bodied 
 imitation was presented three handsome trout, one after 
 another, accepted at the first offer, and then all was over 
 for the evening. 
 
 Had it been July there might have been a prolongation 
 of sport by reason of the blue-winged olive rise coming on 
 after the fall of spinner. This fly the trout will be found 
 to take as well and boldly in open as in weedy water. 
 
 Enough has been said to suggest that the advice fre- 
 quently tendered to keep away from the river for ten days 
 or a fortnight after weed-cutting is not particularly good 
 advice. 
 

 V 
 
 
 1. 
 
 w. 
 
 
 
 B. 
 
 w. 
 
 o. 
 
 I want to sing the praises of the blue-winged olive. As 
 a sport-providing fly it can give the May fly several stone 
 and a beating. From mid-June to the end of the season 
 there is scarcely an evening when it may not put in an 
 appearance. When it does put in an appearance there is 
 always a chance of a big fish. When it puts in an ap- 
 pearance in quantity there is the chance of a big basket, 
 and all the fish in the basket big. 
 
 The hour of the hatch is usually late. A sprinkling of 
 blue-winged olives will go down almost unregarded while 
 the light lasts, but in the gloaming, after a pause, the 
 fly will sometimes hatch out in quantity, and at once 
 every big fish in the river will be busy gulping them 
 down. 
 
 It is at this point the angler needs to be careful about 
 his fly. He must be sure what the trout are doing. At 
 one time the trout will be nymphing, and the only way 
 to take them will be with a sunk, sparsely-hackled, dark 
 brown olive pattern. At another time, maybe later in the 
 same rise, the trout will be taking subimago. Then, ac- 
 cording to my experience, a large Orange Quill, No. i size, 
 is fatal. At times, however, I have killed well with a fly 
 of the same size dressed thus: 
 
 166 
 
B. W. O. 167 
 
 Wings. — Darkest starling or medium coot. 
 
 Body. — Greenish-olive seal's fur. 
 
 Tag. — Flat gold. 
 
 Whisks. — Pale dun cock. 
 
 Hackle. — Medium olive. 
 
 Hook. — No. 1. 
 
 Another pattern which occasionally kills well is dressed 
 in the same way except that the body is of heron herl dyed 
 a greenish-yellow olive, and there is a rib of fine gold and 
 no tag. 
 
 But at times the trout will concentrate on the spinner. 
 It may be, and generally is, the male spinner — of a dark, 
 rich brown sherry colour. On such occasions I have found 
 a fly dressed as follows deadly : 
 
 Hook. — No. 1, round bend or equivalent in Limerick 
 
 shape. 
 Body. — Dark sherry-brown seal's fur. 
 Rib. — Fine gold wire. 
 Whisk. — Honey-dun cock. 
 Hackle. — Six or seven turns of dark, rusty dun cock. 
 
 As an illustration of the importance of a correct diagnosis, 
 let me quote a recent experience on the Itchen. 
 
 On June 21, 1919, the small fly evening rise was 
 over, and I judged from the large and violent kidney- 
 shaped whorls made by the rising trout that they had 
 come on to the blue- winged olive. I offered a big fish 
 under my own bank an Orange Quill with some confidence. 
 He took no notice at first, but presently stopped, and I 
 moved on to another fish. He was taking just above a 
 large clump of a big umbelliferous plant, and I had to 
 throw over it and recover my fly through it or not at all. 
 So I calculated I had just one chuck, and if that did not 
 come off I might as well move on, for I should not have 
 another chance. I watched the fish for a minute or two, 
 
168 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 and concluded he was not taking subimagines. I had 
 seen no spinner going down, so I knotted on a nymph, 
 wetted it thoroughly in my mouth, judged my distance, 
 and dropped the fly a foot in front of the fish and outside 
 him. The fly went under, and instantly there was a tell- 
 tale hint on the surface which made me pull home. I 
 netted the fish out eventually at the place where I 
 had put down the first fish, and the scales said two and 
 three-quarter pounds. The next stretch was barren, but 
 when I found another riser the evening had moved on, 
 and the trout would have nothing to say to the nymph. 
 I tied on an Orange Quill, and the next fish had it at the 
 first offer. He scaled two pounds five ounces, I got one 
 other of one and a half pounds, and then all was suddenly 
 over for the evening. 
 
 The following week-end a friend got the fish I had begun 
 on. He scaled three pounds two ounces. If only I ! 
 
 July 6 was another blue-winged olive evening, but 
 as there had been a sprinkle of the subimagines coming 
 up all day, and I had seen none on the water for half an 
 hour, I divined, when the trout began to rise madly about 
 9.30, that it was spinner that was doing the trick. There 
 were two big fish rising within ten feet of one another in a 
 favourite bend where the current ran deep and strong under 
 my bank, the left. I therefore tied on a hackled Ruddy 
 Spinner, and laid it across the lower fish. He had it 
 immediately and tore off up the stream, half out of water, 
 for some twenty yards or more. Then I turned him down, 
 but the mischief was done; the upper fish was scared and 
 had gone. The hooked fish made a gallant fight, but the 
 keeper weighed him a little later — two and a half pounds 
 good. It was some way up to the next riser, and when I 
 had put him down with a bad cast I thought all was over 
 for the evening, and was making for the bridge to cross the 
 
B. W. O. 169 
 
 river and so home-along, when I saw a fish rise under a 
 tussock by my bank. I gave him the fly, and he took it 
 gaily, and presently joined the fish in my bag — a com- 
 paratively small fish, one pound nine ounces, and not a very 
 good colour. Then, as I came to the spot from which I 
 had cast to him, I saw, three or four yards higher up, a 
 series of spreading rings which called for the administration 
 of the Spinner. Again, the first chuck was all that was 
 necessary. At the movement of the neb I pulled in, and 
 the line was torn off the reel as the fish raced madly diag- 
 onally across the river, and ended with a wild fling in the air 
 that revealed his solid proportions. He put up a gorgeous 
 fight, but came to the net at last — two pounds twelve ounces 
 exactly. That was really the end of that evening. 
 
 The following week-end I was down again. It had 
 rained hard in the afternoon and evening, and I did not 
 get into position till 9.15. I was clad in a mackintosh, 
 which covered me down to the tops of my waders, to 
 preserve me from getting soaked by the dripping herbage, 
 in places nearly man high. I began at the choice corner 
 above-mentioned. There were two fish busy in it, both 
 good ones, and I made the mistake of giving them the 
 Spinner which had been successful on the previous oc- 
 casion. I had seen a good hatch of subimago on the 
 surface, and if I had only exercised ordinary common 
 sense I would have put an Orange Quill, and I should 
 probably have had one and possibly both. As it was, I 
 put both down. I then moved quietly up to get to the fish 
 I had put down by a bad cast the previous week-end. I 
 found him busy, but not too busy to attend to my Orange 
 Quill. He weighed two pounds two ounces. Next I cast 
 right across to a fish taking steadily in the shadow under 
 the far bank. He soon stopped; probably it was drag. 
 I felt sure he was a good fish, and I got to the bridge 
 
 22 
 
170 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 and down to him as quickly as I could. I was afraid the 
 rise might be over, but he was still taking at intervals 
 sufficiently close to enable me to cover him precisely 
 enough, and he had the Orange Quill at the first offer. 
 At first I thought I had misjudged his weight, his move- 
 ments were so slow, but presently he became scared and 
 showed his mettle, and during the latter stages of the 
 battle he was half out of the water, and lashing the surface 
 and churning it into foam. But the little nine-footer guided 
 him to the net, and he lay on the bank in the moonlight, 
 a perfect picture of what a chalk-stream trout should be — 
 deep, solid, short, and thick, in the pink of condition, 
 three pounds two ounces. 
 
 I have given these three evening experiences just as 
 illustrations of the varying ways in which trout must be 
 approached under differing conditions, even when rising 
 at the same fly. It is often very difficult to judge which 
 is the right or best course to adopt, and much valuable 
 time may be lost by an error in judgment. 
 
 It may be asked why the Orange Quill is taken at night 
 for the blue- winged olive. I answer frankly, I don't know. 
 I only know that it is. I discovered it by accident in the 
 early nineties, and it was a lucky accident, for it has been 
 worth many a good fish to me. In one season I remember 
 five successive Saturday evenings in June and July, each 
 of which yielded three and a half brace to the Orange Quill. 
 That experience led me astray at first, and I had some 
 disappointments before I worked back to the full apprecia- 
 tion of the fact that blue-winged olive fishing has three 
 phases — nymph, subimago, and spinner. 
 
 To fish the nymph at night is even more fascinating than 
 to do so by day. In order to divine the rise and the right 
 moment to strike it is essential to choose a stretch where 
 you look up into the light under your own bank. Then, 
 
B. W. O. 171 
 
 when the fly is taken under water, there is the faintest 
 little heave of the silver of the surface, but as the hook 
 goes home the resistance is apt to be magnificent. 
 
 Curiously enough, the blue- winged olive is seldom taken 
 on the surface during the daytime, and when it is its 
 artificial imitation is still less frequently accepted, but I 
 have had excellent sport with a well-sunken nymph. On 
 rare occasions I have found the female spinner on the water 
 early in the morning, and the big fish busy. When she 
 shows up of an evening it is with her blue bag of eggs 
 attached. 
 
 The May fly has gone from my stretch of Itchen; but if 
 I had to choose whether I would exchange for its return 
 the blue-winged olive, my answer would, without hesita- 
 tion, be " Not at any price.' ' 
 
VI 
 TACTICAL 
 
 GLIMPSES OF THE MOON. 
 
 Many anglers have no doubt been driven to consider the 
 effect of the moon on rising trout and grayling, but the 
 moon being a lady of habits which, though regular, bear a 
 different relation to each successive evening, and the even- 
 ing rise being itself a thing of infinite variety, the study 
 of the effects of moonlight on angling results has perhaps 
 received rather less than its due. I thought myself lucky, 
 therefore, in that during a holiday on the Itchen of the last 
 week in August, 1914, I had a little moonlight on this 
 interesting subject. The general trend of the stretch of 
 the river which it was my privilege to fish is from north 
 to south, with some lengths almost directly so, and in the 
 main with few exaggerated zigzags. It thus happened that 
 a moon showing a little east of south, even after sunset, 
 was generally behind my hand on most of the lengths which 
 it was open to me to select, and on only one short hundred 
 yards was it open to me to cast across from north-east to 
 south-west more or less into the shadow of the opposite 
 bank. Each successive evening the wind fell in such sort 
 as to give hopes of a good evening rise, and the time of 
 year was not too late for a good hatch of the blue-winged 
 olive. 
 
 As a rule the dipping of the sun's upper rim marks the 
 beginning of the evening rise, and where a thick coppice, 
 
 172 
 
TACTICAL 173 
 
 or spinney, or a high bank cuts off the sunlight sooner, one 
 may hope to find a trout or two beginning earlier than 
 where the banks are open. This suggests that where the 
 fly is on the water the time of the take is dictated by 
 conditions of light. Generally, no doubt, the fall of spinner 
 on the water closely coincides with the change in tempera- 
 ture which comes where the sun gets off the water; but 
 the hatch of duns, which often comes about sooner, may 
 be expedited or retarded by little-understood conditions. 
 
 On the occasion under consideration the sunset hour, 
 according to Whitaker, was 7.4 p.m., Greenwich time, 
 and the moon was in her first quarter, and timed 
 to set at 7.58 p.m. By the time, therefore, that the 
 sun was off the water on the first evening the three- 
 day-old moon was getting down in the sky towards 
 a setting almost straight down-stream. It was, how- 
 ever, quite bright. The bend of the river which I 
 selected was sheltered by a high bank and a spinney, 
 and soon after sunset a fish or two began to move, but 
 they were invariably oncers, and it was not till the moon 
 was right down and off the water that the trout began to 
 rise freely and to be held, and there was only time for a 
 brace. That was on the Monday. On the Tuesday the sun 
 set at 7.2 and the moon 8.8. On getting to the river 
 I went farther down-stream for my after-dinner start, 
 and got the keeper to put me across to the eastern bank 
 at the bottom of a stretch where the stream ran deep on 
 that side, a beat which experience told me held the best 
 fish within the limits of my leave. The moon was low, 
 but again bright, and right behind my rod. The fish were 
 rising before the sun was quite off the water, and though at 
 a distance they seemed to be feeding heartily, no sooner 
 did one deliver the first cast than they stopped, and I had 
 to go home content with my bag of the day. On the 
 
174 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 Wednesday the sun set at 7 and the growing moon at 
 8.28. On that evening I set out to negotiate a noble 
 two-pounder which inhabited a deep hole in a little bay 
 in the shadow of a spinney and thoroughly protected from 
 the moonlight by a combination of tree shelter and tussock. 
 My plan was to take my stand in the shadow of the spinney 
 and to switch a small Rusty Spinner across to the bay. 
 The fish thereabouts had already begun to move when I 
 got down to the spinney after dinner, and I thought my 
 big friend had moved up a yard or so and was feeding 
 carefully at the top of his hole. 
 
 I was wrong, for as my spinner was taken, and my fish 
 went off down-stream with a slam, there was a huge boil 
 as the two-pounder flounced off the exact spot where I 
 had expected to find him. When the other fish — one pound 
 nine ounces — was ashore, I decided not to wait for the 
 return of the fugitive, so I got the keeper to put me across 
 at the bottom of the stretch above described. It was then 
 seven o'clock, and the sun just down. I found a few fish 
 feeding cautiously, yet fairly freely. Yet every time I 
 reached a fish and put my spinner over him he stopped 
 at the second, if not at the first, cast. The moon, grown 
 since overnight, was behind me, and if it was not the 
 moonlight that made the trout conscious that all was not 
 right, I cannot guess what it was. By 7.15 the rise was 
 all over, and it set me speculating whether the moonlight 
 had any effect in expediting the evening rise. I did not 
 get another fish, and I turned in before the moon went 
 down. 
 
 The following evening the sun went down at 6.59 and 
 the moon at 8.55. Again I tried the same bank, again 
 I found the evening rise beginning even before the sun 
 went down. Taking the cue from the spinners I had 
 found in the maw of the overnight trout, I had dressed 
 
TACTICAL 175 
 
 some bright Orange Red spinners, and with one of these 
 in a somewhat sheltered bay I got a trout of just two pounds 
 with a first cast that pitched almost on his nose, and gave 
 him no time to think. But apart from that my experience 
 was a replica of that of the previous evening. I would 
 have tried fishing into rises in the black shadows under 
 the opposite bank if I could have got to a place with a 
 bank sheltering the water from the moon, but the only 
 bend that answered that description was a haunt of grayling, 
 and I was out for trout. 
 
 The following evening the sunset was at 6.56, and the 
 moon was timed to go down at 9.24. This was perhaps 
 the most hopeless evening of the lot. The trout were as 
 nervous as on a day of milk-and-watery glare, and if I 
 had not had the first-mentioned two-pounder (sixteen 
 inches and two pounds two ounces), taken in the morning 
 on a Whitchurch dun in the hole from which he bolted on 
 the Wednesday night, to console me, I should have knocked 
 off in a poor humour with myself. It had been a bright, 
 glaring day with an easterly trend in the air, and the trout 
 had been nymphing all day, and may have been gorged to 
 repletion. Still the rises ere I approached showed that 
 they had not quite done. 
 
 As it was, I was inclined to kick myself for not applying 
 during the week a lesson got some years back on a water 
 which ran from east to west, so that an angler fishing the 
 evening rise upstream always had the sunset glow behind 
 him. There I found the trout almost unapproachable 
 from behind; but, curiously enough, they accepted most 
 confidingly a fly floated down to them. Probably I ought 
 to have begun at the other end of my stretch and to have 
 drifted my spinner down to my fish, and who knows but 
 what I might have had a hefty bag to bring in. That east 
 and west stretch, by the way, is remarkable in that a 
 
176 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 good evening rise upon it is a notable rarity. The next 
 night I went away before the evening rise. 
 
 Now, like Captain Cuttle's, the point of these observa- 
 tions " lies in the application of 'em." They seem to me 
 to establish that moonlight or sunset glow equally with 
 daylight behind the angler reveal him to the fish, and that 
 the eyesight which enables the trout to make fine dis- 
 tinctions of colour and texture on and in the water by 
 night as by day enables him to see, and especially behind 
 him against a diffused light, any suspicious movements 
 on the bank. The light may also in such a position reveal 
 the gut as it passes over the fish or alights on the water. 
 It may conceal the ravages of anno Domini from the trout, 
 but from any other point of view it is of no advantage to 
 the angler to be "in the dusk with the light behind 
 him." 
 
 side-strain: twice two and an explanation. 
 
 On the far side of the water, about half-way up, there 
 is a deep muddy cross-drain unbridged, and a big willow- 
 bush on the upstream side to mark it. Just above it I 
 had made a note of a fairly persistent banker rising. 
 Others had found him aggravating, for he was within a 
 longish cast and would not endure a suspicion of a drag. 
 But to go round involved something of a walk, ending in 
 a cautious wade through a midge-ridden marsh. So I 
 was — at least, I believe I was — the first to go round to see 
 if he were more amenable to persuasion from below than 
 from across the river. Arrived on the spot, I could not 
 fail to realize that if I hooked my trout he had only to go 
 down-stream fast enough and far enough to smash me 
 infallibly. However, such a consideration never prevented 
 me from casting to a likely trout, and I settled down to 
 lay siege to him. This was the third week-end in July, and 
 
TACTICAL 177 
 
 I had just elaborated a nice dressing of the small darkish 
 olive that one gets at this time of year. It was tied with 
 a body of pale blue heron herl, dyed a greenish olive, 
 bound down with a rib of fine gold wire, and otherwise 
 was unremarkable enough. For the details see p. no. 
 The object of my attentions was rising at intervals 
 alongside the bank, but never twice in quite the same 
 place, and his range brought him at times so near me 
 that I could not have lifted my little nine-footer without 
 scaring him, and it was only when he was at the top 
 of his beat that I dared swing my line to him. Mean- 
 while I crouched low, as much hidden by a tussock as 
 possible, and keeping the willow as a background for my 
 willow-coloured fishing suit. Presently he was taking a 
 fly close to another tussock not ten yards up above me 
 (about his top limit). It happened to be my fly, and I 
 signified the same in the usual manner by raising my hand. 
 The little rod bowed beautifully in acknowledging the 
 compliment to my fly dressing, and the line began to cut 
 swiftly down-stream. Another second and the trout would 
 have been below me, below the cross-drain, safe perhaps in a 
 bunch of heavy weed, and it would only be a question of how 
 much of my cast I should save. Instinctively I plunged back- 
 wards into the marsh, bending my rod almost horizontally 
 across my body as I faced upstream, and bringing to bear 
 on the fish's mouth every ounce of cross-stream strain I 
 could. The effect was instantaneous. He turned and 
 plunged desperately through the weeds upstream, and I 
 let him go, following, however, closely, and keeping a line 
 so short that every attempt to turn down again was met 
 by instantaneous retreat into the marsh with rod held low 
 and side-strain reapplied. In this way I beat him up- 
 stream until I had him almost to the place where I ex- 
 pected to find my next fish, and then I decided that there 
 
 23 
 
178 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 was room below for the normal chalk-stream tactics, and 
 I combed my fish down, and I netted him out from below 
 the tussock from which the successful cast had been 
 delivered. I guessed him at close on two pounds. The 
 keeper's scales said two pounds exactly. 
 
 Incidentally I got that other fish — but that is another 
 story. 
 
 I was down again on the water on September 1, and 
 I met one of the rods. " By the way/' he said, " that 
 qualified trout of yours above the willow-bush at the 
 Moor drain was pegging away as hard as ever as I came 
 down." "That is strange," said I; "I was under the 
 impression that my family had eaten him, and I certainly 
 knocked him on the head and brought him in. However, 
 I will investigate the phenomenon." 
 
 It was all right. Crouched low behind the same old 
 tussock with the same old willow as a background for the 
 same old suit, I watched what might have been the same 
 old trout making the same old circuit over the same old 
 beat. And as he took a natural fly near the top limit, 
 the same old rod delivered a little Red Sedge as if it had 
 dropped off the tussock hard by on to the water. The 
 greedy neb reached for it, and I responded in the same 
 old manner. Off flashed the fish down-stream. But I 
 plunged into the marsh with rod hooped and held low. 
 Step for step, incident for incident, the battle pursued the 
 identical course of the just recounted fight of some weeks 
 before, and I netted out at the same old tussock a beautiful 
 male fish which again scaled the exact two pounds. 
 
 Incidentally there was another occupant of the next 
 place of vantage from which I had got that other fish, 
 and I approached him hopefully, with all the omens in 
 favour of a repetition of the luck of the previous occasion. 
 Unfortunately an unexpected flaw of wind dropped my 
 
TACTICAL 179 
 
 fly upon the sedge, and my attempt to recover it put the 
 trout definitely down. 
 
 This, however, is irrelevant, the point of this narrative 
 being that a soundly hooked trout, howbeit big and power- 
 ful, need not be allowed his own way if it be inconvenient 
 for the angler to let him go down; and that, by judicious 
 application of strain in the right direction, he may be 
 persuaded that he is fighting you more successfully by 
 boring upstream at tremendous expense of energy. The 
 time to knock it into his head that he is wrong is when 
 he is in the landing-net. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon some days later at the Fly-Fishers' 
 Club I had a conversation with a guest of another 
 member which threw some light upon this episode. I 
 cannot give his name, so as to give him the credit due to 
 him, for I do not recall it, nor do I recall whose guest he 
 was. I hope, whoever he was, he will forgive me for 
 putting about his theory with this inadequate acknow- 
 ledgment. 
 
 The conversation led up to my recounting this episode. 
 Of course, I had realized that I was applying side-strain to 
 bring the fish round, but it was the guest who explained 
 why side-strain was so immediately effective when no 
 strain in any other direction would have availed to stop the 
 fish. " You see," he said, " the trout swims with a lateral 
 action, moving his head from side to side, and if, as he 
 goes down-stream, you pull his head round hard sideways, 
 half the time he must be yielding to the strain, and that 
 makes it so hard as to be almost impossible for him to 
 fight against it the other half of the time. So he comes 
 round. If you applied the same amount of strain overhead 
 it would only tend to lift him, and would have nothing 
 like the same effect in stopping or turning him." 
 
 Very simple and obvious when put that way. Of course, 
 
i8o THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 a fish forging upstream may be turned in precisely the 
 same way if you keep opposite him or but little below. 
 And no doubt most of us have used the method many a 
 time. But I for one am glad to have been made aware 
 of the cause of its efficiency, and I thank the stranger. 
 
 There is another development. At times your trout 
 may keep so close in with a high bank above him that it 
 is impossible to apply the side-strain. Then if you can 
 exhibit the landing-net so as to drive him out with a rush 
 into mid-stream it will give you a chance for a resolute 
 application of side-strain, and the fish will be brought 
 round and turned upstream again. One morning in May, 
 1920, I was on a sedgy bank in difficulties with a big fish 
 which, boring close under the tussock, was forcing his way 
 down towards a hedge with barbed wire in it past which 
 I could not hope to follow him. In despair I shortened 
 line all I could, caught up to the fish, and proffered the 
 net. He rushed out at once more than half-way across- 
 stream, when the rod, held low and horizontal, forced him 
 round not ten feet above the hedge, and I kept him going 
 upstream till he was out of danger. Twelve hours later 
 the keeper weighed him — three pounds good. 
 
 OF POCKET-PICKING. 
 
 As summer advances and the weeds are unusually high, 
 there is to be found in a momentarily neglected fishery 
 a chance of chances to find the trout in most unsuspecting 
 humour for the fly, ofttimes for the dry, but more often 
 for the wet. The celery beds are thrusting themselves, 
 big and bold, out of the water, and the long sword blades 
 of the ranunculus trail along the surface in dense masses 
 at a little distance from the bank, coming closer at intervals 
 and dividing the smooth run under the bank into a series 
 of little pools. The day is perhaps hot and sunny, the 
 
TACTICAL 181 
 
 wind fallen, the water smooth and glassy. Happy then 
 is the angler of whom the phrenologist can say, in the 
 words of the Bab Balladist, " unusually large his bump 
 of pocket-pickery," for the picking of these pockets in the 
 weeds is his game. 
 
 In many of them there will be a trout, probably not 
 taking surface food, but willing to be tempted if properly 
 approached. If you make up your mind to offer him a 
 dry fly, the probability is that your first offer will be your 
 last. Either he takes it or the disturbance necessarily 
 made in recovering your fly puts him down, but the wet 
 fly is another story. You want your fly to sink on alighting, 
 so it has to be sparsely dressed and well soaked, but it is 
 wonderful what a heavy fall a fly may make without 
 scaring your trout, provided the line falls lightly and does 
 not drag. Indeed, the fall of the fly serves to advertise 
 the fish of its presence, and he often takes it immediately, 
 on its lighting, before there is time for much gut to have 
 gone below the surface film. But assume he does not — 
 you withdraw your fly under water at the bottom of the 
 pocket without making any splash or drag as in lifting a 
 dry fly, and you cast again and again to an undisturbed 
 trout, and if he will have none of your GreenwelTs Glory 
 or Tup's Indispensable you may still try him with a floater, 
 or small Sedge, a Pink Wickham, a Red Quill, or whatever 
 you may fancy. But it is surprising how confidingly a 
 trout lying in such a position will come to the wet fly 
 with just enough movement of the surface of the water 
 to give the hint that bids you fasten. 
 
 OF THE WAYS OF BRER FOX. 
 
 " Brer Fox he des' lay low and say nufnnV Very wise 
 of Brer Fox. It is a commonplace among fly fishermen 
 (though better observed in precept than in practice) to 
 
182 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 lie low when casting to a trout in position, but it is less 
 known among them that there are frequently advantages 
 in continuing the procedure after the trout is hooked and 
 until he is in the net. Let me illustrate the point by an 
 example. One bright July day I got down on my face 
 and wriggled serpentwise behind a screen of flags close to 
 the edge of a bright, gravelly shallow just below a wooden 
 carrier which conveyed another stream over that which I 
 was fishing. It is pretty safe to say that a strong fish 
 that got up under the carrier and into the deep, weeded 
 pool on the far side would take more than a little dis- 
 lodging. There were several nice fish out on the shallow, 
 and though no duns were yet showing in air or on water 
 the fish had clearly got going, for they were active in 
 motion though not breaking the surface. Peering between 
 the flags, I delivered a well-soaked Tup's Indispensable 
 with a horizontal flick above the best of the nearer fish, 
 and at the third or fourth offer he turned to it and was 
 fast. He seemed utterly puzzled. The rod was a light 
 one, and I did not hold him hard. He seemed only con- 
 scious of something unpleasant in his jaw. He shook his 
 head several times and moved about uneasily. Still I 
 kept low and out of sight. 
 
 Then, failing to dislodge the barb, he began to get a 
 bit alarmed, and made a bee-line for a bit of rough, broken 
 camp-sheathing on the far side. In doing so he was 
 travelling at an angle of about 45 degrees with the stream, 
 so that at the critical moment I had little difficulty in 
 turning his head down-stream and away from the point of 
 danger. I did not take him far, however, but eased again. 
 He seemed unable to make out what was the matter with 
 him, and suffered himself to be led by easy stages and the 
 avoidance of any serious pressure into the vicinity of the 
 screen of flags, and into a gap in them where the landing- 
 
TACTICAL 183 
 
 net was in readiness to receive his one pound seven ounces. 
 The other fish on the shallow seemed quite undisturbed, 
 and without changing my position I realized another brace 
 in the next half-hour, and not one of the leash made a 
 bolt for the shelter of the carrier or attempted to weed. 
 
 PICKING IT OFF: A VERY MINOR TACTIC. 
 
 It is a very minor one. 
 
 If it had occurred to me as having any novelty in it, 
 I should no doubt have given it a corner in a former volume 
 dedicated to my friend the Dry-Fly Fisherman. But in 
 sooth, though I had practised the device for years, it was 
 not until the summer of 19 10, after the book was on the 
 market, that anyone ever noticed it. Since then, from 
 time to time, men with whom I have been fishing have 
 expressed their surprise that a plan so simple and so 
 efficacious never occurred to them, and it therefore struck 
 me that it might be worth while to present it for what it 
 is worth to the community of fishers with the fly. I do so 
 with the full expectation of being told that there is no 
 novelty in it, and that it has been practised for years. I 
 can only say that I evolved it myself, and I never saw 
 anyone use the plan before I did. 
 
 I put down its evolution to Mr. Walter D. Coggeshall, 
 known to members of the Fly- Fishers' Club as the Member 
 for America and a magician in dressing casting lines. 
 
 In 1904 he gave me a priceless casting line, with a curse 
 to follow me to the grave and blight future generations of 
 my name, if any, if I dared to use vegetable or mineral oil or 
 animal fat to make the line float. Having, therefore, pity 
 upon future generations, I did not use vegetable or mineral 
 oil or animal fat upon the line. Having also pity on my 
 ten-foot six-ounce Leonard, I desired to save it as much 
 as possible from the strain of picking up and lifting a 
 
184 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 heavy Halford line, partially sunk, from the surface of 
 the water. I accordingly sought for some method of getting 
 the line into the air without dragging it, fly and all (especi- 
 ally May fly and all) through the water, and the obvious 
 thing was to adapt a part of the switch or roll cast. I 
 accordingly developed almost automatically the following 
 method: Assume that you are standing beside a stream 
 running from your left to your right, that you have laid your 
 cast across, and that you desire to pick it up for a new cast. 
 You move your rod-point briskly out to the right and up 
 and round in a rapid curve to the left. This picks up the 
 weightiest part of the line and lifts it, bellying in a cork- 
 screw shape, into the air, leaving little but the light taper 
 end on the water, and before it has time to reach the water 
 again the entire line is lifted into the air with an absolute 
 minimum of strain on the rod. If the stream be running 
 in the other direction, the loop at the beginning of the 
 cast may be simply reversed, but this is really hardly 
 necessary if the pace of the stream be moderate. The 
 method is difficult to describe clearly, but it is as easy as 
 possible to pick up, even for an inexperienced caster. 
 
 ARGILLACEOUS. 
 
 It is said of a certain length of the Gloucestershire Coin, 
 by one who knows it well and has a title to his opinion, 
 that no man can hope to catch trout upon it with his gut 
 floating on the surface. He who was responsible for that 
 opinion is essentially a dry-fly man, and that makes his 
 utterance the more remarkable. 
 
 Simultaneously with a general recognition of the fatal 
 effect of one's gut looping clear of the water there seems 
 to have arisen of late years a certain amount of specula- 
 tion on the desirability of sinking the gut in immediate 
 proximity to the fly, and on the means available for bringing 
 
TACTICAL 185 
 
 about that sinking without drowning the fly. In fact, 
 anglers have been seeking something the converse of the 
 wet-fly oil tip — invented by Mr. C. A. M. Skues, till 1917 
 the Secretary of the Fly-Fishers' Club. There the gut was 
 paraffined down to the last link, or two links, to make it 
 float, while the fly, constructed to sink, and the last link 
 or two, drawn down by the fly, sank. Now, with a fly con- 
 structed to float, something is wanted to make the portion 
 of the cast nearest to the fly sink. Some have even sug- 
 gested that the whole of the gut should sink, on the ground 
 that floating guts cast a considerable and unnatural shadow 
 on sand or gravel bottoms, whereas the shadow cast by 
 sunken gut is so small as to be almost negligible. It is 
 probable that on weeds the shadow from floating gut is 
 much less noticeable. If, however, the fly is to float, it is 
 conceived that the current operating on a sunken line 
 would set up drag much sooner than it would if the line 
 were floating, at any rate, in the case of a cross-stream 
 cast. One ingenious theorist challenges that proposition, 
 suggesting that the deeper the cast sinks the slower moving 
 is the stratum of water in which it is suspended; ergo, in 
 a cross-stream cast the deeper the middle of the line is 
 sunk the more easily will the fly on the other side keep 
 pace with it. 
 
 It is unnecessary, however, for the present purposes to 
 reach a positive conclusion in this question. The first 
 thing is to discover what agents will cause the gut to 
 sink without drowning the fly. Several alternative sugges- 
 tions have been made. The first was no doubt due to the 
 attempt to preserve gut in glycerine. This undoubtedly 
 will sink gut immediately after application, but it soon 
 washes off. Raw potato was another suggestion, but the 
 writer was not greatly impressed with the result of the 
 experiment. Doubtless there are many vegetable juices 
 
 24 
 
186 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 which might have the same effect in a stronger degree, 
 but they have yet to be found. The most effective agent 
 so far suggested is the discovery of Major H. J. Pack- 
 Beresford, of the Fly-Fishers' Club. It is within the reach 
 of the poorest, being nothing more than clay. It un- 
 doubtedly takes the part of the line to which it is applied 
 under water at once, and it does not seem to require 
 repeated applications. Most anglers must have noticed 
 the extraordinary drying effect on gut of the jar which 
 ensues on one's hitching into a tree on the back cast. It 
 seems to have the effect of drying even the clay-dressed 
 gut in such a way as to dry and jar all the clay off it in 
 one action. But if the angler be a believer in the virtues 
 of clay it is not difficult to carry a little moist lump with 
 him, and to apply it " when so dispoged." 
 
 OF GLYCERINE. 
 
 Obviously, however, clay, with or without glycerine, is 
 quite unsuitable for causing a fly to sink, for it would foul 
 the material of the fly and perhaps destroy the colour. 
 Glycerine by itself is free from this objection, and the fol- 
 lowing account of a recent afternoon and evening on the 
 Itchen may serve as evidence of its value as an agent for 
 taking the fly under. 
 
 I reached the river-side with a friend about half-past 
 three on a dull afternoon in mid-July, 1920, and looking 
 up a favourite bend I saw a series of soft rings spreading 
 under my own, the right bank. My friend, as guest, took 
 first shot; I looked on. Presently I became aware of blue- 
 winged olive coming down upon the surface, and I knotted 
 on my cast a fly which I had dressed coming down in the 
 train from town. The hook was a No. 15 Limerick, tying 
 silk yellow ; hackle a soft, floppy, dark blue, which matches 
 the wing of a blue- winged olive very well; body of a soft 
 
TACTICAL 187 
 
 blue fur, dyed to match the body shade; and whisks of 
 soft rusty honey dun. My friend's floater covered the trout 
 a number of times without disturbing him and without 
 attracting his attention, though several times the trout 
 rose at something invisible an inch or two from my friend's 
 fly. I made up my mind that he was not taking on the 
 surface, and in preparation for the next fish I dipped my 
 fly in a small glycerine bottle and ran the glycerine up the 
 length of the first strand of gut. 
 
 Presently my friend made up his mind to change his 
 fly, and begged me to take a cast while he was doing so. 
 Thus it came that the glycerine-logged fly pitched beyond 
 and just to the right of the trout and went under imme- 
 diately. The trout had it at once. I did not kill the 
 trout, for, after ploughing through several heavy beds of 
 weed, he wore down the cast enough to break it without 
 my ever seeing him. He was, however, a heavy fish, in 
 the neighbourhood of, if not over, three pounds. 
 
 There was nothing else doing during the afternoon, and 
 presently we went in for an early dinner. 
 
 Soon after nine the same evening the blue-winged olive 
 rise began, and though there were not many fish rising 
 those that were rising seemed to be rising very well. In 
 vain, however, we plied them with Orange Quill and Rusty 
 Red spinner, for not a vestige of a rise did either of us 
 secure. At last, at ten minutes to ten, I made up my 
 mind to try an alternative I had not tried that evening, 
 and I knotted on a dark nymph pattern, soaked it in 
 glycerine, and despatched it to a trout over which I had 
 spent ten minutes with the dry fly in vain. The fly lit 
 nearly a yard from the trout, but it was hardly under 
 before he had it, and the keeper weighed him later at 
 two pounds fourteen ounces. 
 
 I hurried over to my friend, gave him a nymph, knotted 
 
188 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 it on, and dipped it in the glycerine. A few moments after- 
 wards I heard him battling with a trout which later turned 
 the scale at two pounds one ounce. 
 
 Meanwhile I offered my own nymph to another fish 
 which was feeding steadily. Presently he took it; but 
 though I struck firmly, the hook did not take a good hold, 
 and it came away. 
 
 Then the entire rise ceased suddenly, and all was over 
 for the evening. 
 
 If only we had had the sense to tie on nymph, and 
 glycerine it, at the beginning of the rise we might have 
 done great things, as all the fish out seemed big. As it 
 was we had but one fish apiece — but each took under water 
 the moment the nymph was offered him. 
 
 THE SWITCH. 
 
 Years before the war I sat one morning late in May at 
 breakfast under the limes in the garden of a Bavarian 
 Gasthaus by the side of a delightful limestone river 
 that teemed with trout. On the far bank the river ran 
 alongside a public road from which it was so divided 
 by a tall hawthorn hedge as to be inaccessible to the 
 angler. On my own side the limes, coming thick down 
 to the river bank, made ordinary casting impossible. 
 But under the hawthorns lay a string of trout that 
 by nine of the clock in the morning were already busy. 
 We were to be off down-stream, my friend and I, as 
 soon as breakfast was disposed of; and, to save time, 
 our rods were already assembled, our lines threaded, 
 and our casts trailing to soak in the stream, and our 
 bags were laid out on a table ready for a start. That 
 string of trout was an aggravation all through the meal, 
 and I was tempted, in an interval of delay that followed, 
 to make an effort to reach one. The stream ran from my 
 
TACTICAL 189 
 
 left to my right and straightened my line nicely. A wet 
 Alder on a No. 2 hook had been attached before breakfast, 
 and I made my first effort at switching. Drawing up my 
 line till my rod made an angle of about 70 degrees with 
 the horizontal, I dipped the point sharply and brought 
 it round and up, and again down with a circular downward 
 and outward cut which brought a belly into the line carry- 
 ing sufficient impetus to lift the rest of the line, the cast, 
 and the fly, off the water, and, without letting it go behind 
 me at all, carried it across river towards and eventually, 
 after several unsuccessful efforts, over to the trout. Owing 
 to their position they had never been fished for, and were 
 accordingly extremely unsophisticated fish, and it was not 
 long before I was leading one by the nose towards my 
 bank. 
 
 During the rest of my stay I practised my switching 
 under those limes at intervals before and after breakfast, 
 lunch, and dinner, and I collected most of the trout -which 
 lay under that thorn hedge. 
 
 On many an occasion since I have had reason to be 
 grateful for the experience, and on the Itchen and else- 
 where I have found it serve me well. The trout which are 
 protected from ordinary open casting are apt to be singu- 
 larly unsuspicious of a wet-fly cast, delivered across- 
 stream by an angler who has tree or bush or copse behind 
 him, and who is careful not to shake the bank in his 
 approach or casting. It does not matter how smooth the 
 water or how bright the weather provided the wind be 
 not adverse. An adverse wind I find generally fatal to 
 the clean and delicate delivery of the fly. But if all goes 
 well the draw of the floating gut, or the smooth hump in 
 the water, indicates that the fly has been accepted. 
 
 Those who know the Duck's Nest Spinney will recall 
 how it comes so close up to the Itchen side as to leave no 
 
190 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 room whatever for casting across by reason of the trees 
 and bushes behind the angler, or for casting upstream by 
 reason of the frequency of overhanging boughs. It follows 
 as a natural corollary that the trout rise rather unusually 
 freely under the big overgrown tussocks which fringe the 
 opposite bank. From their own side these fish are almost 
 unapproachable; and, though I have occasionally caught 
 one from that side, it has been the exception rather than 
 the rule, and I have far oftener been irritated by their 
 promptitude in stopping directly my rod-tip appeared over 
 the screen of tussocks, and by being hung up in those 
 tussocks every third or fourth cast. Until my German 
 visit, I had often looked longingly at those trout from the 
 spinney side, but I had either gone back to attempt them, 
 without much hope and with less success, from their own 
 side, or had reluctantly moved on and given them a 
 miss. 
 
 But one evening in the July following my German 
 experience I was going down-stream through the spinney, 
 to wait lower down for the evening rise to begin, when I 
 heard a sound under the opposite bank, and saw a small, 
 soft ring begin to spread. I looked again longingly, and 
 twice the same thing happened. I tied on a Jenny spinner, 
 oiled it carefully, and, drawing line off the reel, switched 
 it out towards the rise. Each cast came nearer, and about 
 the fourth or fifth cast the fly lit beautifully softly, just 
 above where the fish had risen, and floated two inches or 
 three inches under the opposite bank. Then it became 
 submerged, and simultaneously I was playing my trout. 
 Twice again in the same season I visited the spinney. On 
 the first occasion I found six fish rising, and switched over 
 to them. I pricked and turned over one and landed all 
 the other five, one being not quite sizable. On the second 
 occasion I killed a brace in the afternoon — the only brace 
 
TACTICAL 191 
 
 rising — and in the evening I could not find the fly they 
 were taking. 
 
 The advantage of the switch cast is the extreme delicacy 
 with which the fly is delivered. It may be a disadvantage 
 that the fly is not readily delivered dry, though the diffi- 
 culty is not so formidable as it looks. There is, however, 
 the counter-balancing advantage that when you want to 
 deliver your fly wet it is quite easy. 
 
 But switching is not only a fine-weather practice. In 
 a rough wind which drives all the duns close under the far 
 bank a fly cast in the ordinary way across eighteen or 
 twenty yards of water would inevitably be dried by being 
 forced backward through the wind in the backward cast, 
 and as a dry fly would inevitably drag in the far eddy 
 almost directly it lit, it is practically essential to deliver 
 a wet fly. This the switch will do with delightful delicacy 
 and with accuracy quite as great as can be attained with 
 the ordinary overhead cast. 
 
VII 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL 
 
 HANDS. 
 
 One of the most enviable of the qualities which go to 
 make up the first-rate fly fisherman is that which, in con- 
 nection with horsemanship, whether in riding or driving, 
 is known as " hands," the combined certainty and delicacy 
 of correspondence between wrist and eye which mean so 
 much, whether in the despatch of the tiny feathered iron 
 to its coveted quarry, or in the skilful restraint of that 
 quarry when hooked, and its ultimate steering to the net. 
 After all, certainty and delicacy are correlatives — dual 
 manifestations of the same confident power. It is, I 
 believe, the truth that the finest handloom weavers are 
 invariably big, powerful men, with their nerves in fine 
 order, and that for fineness and delicacy their work far 
 excels that of women. Anyone turning over Who's Who, 
 and picking out those whose recreation is angling, will 
 probably be surprised to see what a large proportion of 
 these classes comes within the fraternity of fly fisherman — 
 sailors, surgeons, and artists — all of them men of their 
 hands, though those hands may differ in type, and there 
 seems little in common between the long taper fingers of 
 the artist and the skilled mechanic type of hand common 
 among great surgeons and dentists. Probably it would 
 be impossible to classify the hands of the sailor man in this 
 way, but the tendency of quality which drove them sea- 
 
 192 
 
PSYCHOLOGICAL 193 
 
 ward made them instinctively handy men. And since the 
 greatest satisfactions of life are to be found in the perfect 
 performance of function, the faculty of handiness, whether 
 in sailor, surgeon, or artist, turns the possessor instinctively 
 to the sport in which the quality finds its finest oppor- 
 tunities of exposition — the sport of fishing with the fly. 
 Watch a company of anglers at the billiard table, and it 
 will be long odds that those with the most sensitive hands, 
 with that quality of touch which makes for scoring, will 
 also be the best fly fishermen. 
 
 It is the quality of hands which enables a man with the 
 shabbiest and most hopeless equipment to make a show 
 of the man whose hopes are built merely on perfection of 
 rods and gear. Wise indeed was George Selwyn Marryat 
 when he said: "It's not the fly; it's the driver." It would 
 seem as if there could be no difference between the way 
 a fly presented by A. and an exact replica presented by 
 B. floats down dry over a fish when once it has lit upon 
 the water. Yet there is some quality in some men which 
 seems to make the fly at the end of their line exercise a 
 provocative fascination over trout which the average 
 performer fails to achieve. The most conspicuous example 
 of this which I ever came across was a Frenchman, with 
 whom I spent a couple of days on a Norman chalk stream 
 during the May-fly season. There was a very hard-fished 
 hundred yards of right bank in part of the water, with a 
 good trout in every little bay. My French friend courte- 
 ously gave me the pas, and I tried fish after fish, seven or 
 eight in all, I think. I was not conscious of fishing badly, 
 and I put none of these fish down, but I got no rise from 
 any one of them; but no sooner — when I stood aside to 
 let him cast to them — did his fly (the same pattern as 
 mine) drift down over a fish than it rose to it almost as 
 a matter of course. I could see no practical difference in 
 
 25 
 
194 THE WAY 0F A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 the delivery of our flies; but, like the eliminated fee in 
 the Edinburgh lawyer's corrected bill, it was a case of 
 " Man, we mayna' see him, but he's there." Hands ! 
 
 ACCURACY AND DELICACY. 
 
 In a fly-fishing career over which I can look back some 
 forty-three years I recall only two instances of anglers 
 who voluntarily abandoned fly fishing in favour of some 
 other amusement. One of these cases I cannot account 
 for. The other was due to the fact that, in the course 
 of the development of astonishing accuracy and power 
 of casting a long straight line, the man became with every 
 advance less and less able to catch trout, and his angling 
 days became a long series of bewildered disappointments. 
 It would appear that it is possible to have too much of a 
 good thing, and that accuracy in excess may be as disas- 
 trous as any other vice or virtue. For that reason, when 
 tempted to take lessons from Mr. Tilton, Mr. F. G. Shaw, 
 Mr. R. D. Hughes, or any other exponent of the high art 
 of casting, I have always said to myself: " No, no, my son. 
 Let well alone. You catch a trout now and then with 
 your amateur, anyhow, hugger-mugger style. If you took 
 lessons and acquired perfection you might be even as N. 
 and catch none, and eventually retire from the sport in 
 despair." That is a catastrophe I am not prepared to face. 
 
 The accuracy which was N.'s bane was probably due to 
 the nature of his gear. Gifted with a wrist of exceptional 
 strength, he could handle a rod of corresponding power, 
 which again needed a very heavy line to develop its 
 capacity. The result was the propulsion of the fly with 
 mathematical accuracy to what it is, I believe, fashionable 
 to call its objective. A straight line, Euclid tells us, is 
 that which lies evenly between two points. But no line 
 remains straight for two seconds on running water. Result, 
 
PSYCHOLOGICAL 195 
 
 immediate drag, and probably precipitate retreat of the 
 enemy trout. 
 
 If that is a true conclusion, it would follow that it is 
 undesirable to use gear of such exceptional power. It is 
 probable, moreover, that a line driven with such exceptional 
 force must be so propelled at the expense of a certain 
 degree of delicacy. I am sure that the sacrifice of delicacy 
 to extreme accuracy is unwise. I lately made the acquaint- 
 ance of an angler who with the wind could cast with excellent 
 accuracy and extreme delicacy. With the wind against 
 us, or in any way adverse, I found I could beat it or 
 cheat it far more successfully than he, but the extra cut 
 I put in the propulsion of the fly had its effect in a sacrifice 
 of delicacy, and on each occasion we fished together he, 
 by reason of his greater delicacy, was the more successful 
 by the end of the day. 
 
 Again, I remember watching a young lady, quite a 
 novice, who was fishing one of the Aunt Sallies of the 
 Itchen with a light rod and light line, and an upstream air 
 rather than wind to help her. I had twice put down that 
 trout during the day, but in the quarter of an hour that 
 the young lady kept casting to the fish she rose him to her 
 fly no less than four times. Unfortunately she always 
 omitted to strike till it was too late, and the fly had been 
 rejected. But I have no doubt whatever that her success 
 in bringing up the fish was due to the extreme delicacy 
 with which her light line, aided by the favouring air, en- 
 abled her to let down a fairly accurate fly over the fish. 
 
 Going back many years to my own early days on a chalk 
 stream before ever I became possessed of a split cane, to 
 say nothing of the miracles of Leonard, I remember that 
 I used to get as many rises to my fly as I do to-day, 
 but owing to nervous haste I left far too many flies in the 
 noses of indignant trout. 
 
196 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 In the interval I recall the successes (and they were 
 many and great) of an angler who used to write over the 
 signature " Red Quill," and his insistence on the virtues 
 of a light reel line, with resulting delicacy. It is true that 
 he lived near the water, and could practically pick his days 
 with favouring wind or none. 
 
 For those, therefore, who are in that happy position I 
 would say: Stick to a light line with a rod suited to it. 
 To those who must take their weather as they find it I 
 would say: Do not overdo your weight of line, or make 
 too great sacrifice of delicacy to accuracy. 
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF THE INADEQUATE. 
 
 Not long since I was entertaining a comparative beginner 
 at chalk-stream angling upon a water which it has for years 
 been my privilege to fish. He, poor man, endowed with a 
 superfluity of this world's goods, had, under guidance which 
 I refrain from characterizing, expended many shekels 
 in the purchase of an awful steel-centred column in split 
 cane which he called a rod, of a reel of puny dimensions, 
 and of a line so light that the rod could get no grip of it. 
 There was another angler on the water on that occasion, 
 and, as it is our wont, both he and I carried ridiculous little 
 five-ounce toys, with which, nevertheless, we manage 
 to secure our share of fish. I had offered my friend the 
 loan of a similar little stick — with reel and line to suit it — 
 but he politely declined, feeling more confidence in the 
 adequacy of his own equipment. 
 
 " On the water," said the Other Rod, " we most of us 
 use the most absurdly inadequate little rods." "Why ?" 
 queried my friend of the steel centre. " Oh, we like it," 
 said the Other Rod, " and we occasionally catch a trout 
 that way." 
 
 It was not till near one o'clock that the fish began to 
 
PSYCHOLOGICAL 197 
 
 move, but before that I had a chance of testing the steel 
 centre, and I soon persuaded its owner to let me lend him 
 a reel of suitable size, carrying a line of somewhere nearer 
 a suitable weight. But even with that I found it difficult 
 to achieve any degree of precision. It was, however, the 
 best I could do for my friend, and I had to leave it at that. 
 I was not, however, surprised to know that, when the fish 
 began to rise, one after another was put down, and not 
 one was accurately covered. I tried the rod myself and 
 could do nothing with it, though there was a slight favouring 
 upstream breeze. My friend implored me to cast with 
 my own rod, and the very first chuck put my Blue-winged 
 Olive two inches above the fish, and next second I was 
 turning a well-hooked pound-and-three-quarter trout down- 
 stream. Once again, later, I let myself be persuaded 
 into casting to a rising fish just above my friend, and 
 again my little absurdity put the fly to an inch, and I 
 hooked a fish of one pound ten ounces. 
 
 I am not quoting this instance to vaunt any superior 
 skill — for with my friend's rod my skill was much on a 
 par with his own — but to afford a test example of what 
 is real adequacy in a rod as distinguished from mere power. 
 My friend's rod was undoubtedly far more powerful than 
 mine. Given enough backing to one's line, one need not 
 have been afraid to handle a salmon on it, but in point 
 of adequacy for the purpose of chalk-stream fishing, dry 
 and wet, it was not in the same street with what a local 
 angler on the Tweed once called " Yon fulish wee gad." 
 It occurred to me, therefore, to examine and, if possible, to 
 define what constitutes adequacy in a fly rod, and it seems 
 to me that the boast of many an angler that his rod is of 
 special power may be a foolish one. It is not so much 
 power as exquisite adaptation of means to end which must 
 be aimed at. Ends vary on different waters and under 
 
198 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 different conditions, and many, indeed most men, have 
 to make one or two rods do for all purposes. Such a rod 
 or rods must then partake of the nature of a compromise. 
 They may be ideal as a compromise, but are little likely to 
 be ideal for all purposes, or, indeed, for many purposes. 
 The ideal would be to have a different rod, with a suitable 
 reel and line, for every new stream, or at any rate for each 
 stream requiring a different weight of casting line. 
 
 It must, I think, be conceded that it is the casting line 
 which conditions the make of rod required for any particular 
 fishing. For instance, on rocky, tumbling waters, which 
 are full of twists and kinks and drags, a heavy line that 
 cannot be held off the water and that quickly goes under is 
 most unsuitable. For such a stream one needs a light 
 line and a rod long enough to hold off the water most of 
 the short line one throws. This involves stiffness for the 
 greater part of its length. The rod will probably be a 
 better hooker if it is very gentle in the upper part. 
 
 On the other hand, if one is fishing a smooth-running 
 chalk stream of crystal clearness, it is essential that one 
 should be able to cast upstream under all conditions of 
 wind. This involves a line of some weight. The weight 
 can easily be overdone, but it should be adequate. Then 
 one wants a rod of the power to carry the line, and yet of 
 such an action that the line will develop the power of the 
 rod. The strength of the rod may easily be excessive. 
 The excess is worse than sheer waste. It is a positive 
 encumbrance. It takes an exceptionally strong wrist to 
 develop the power of such a rod. Therefore, for the 
 majority of mankind, a rod of moderate but concentrated 
 power is to be sought. It wants to be stripped of all 
 unessentials, all lockfast or bayonet joints, all extra 
 whippings, all superfluous metal, and, above all, of all 
 superfluous timber, and to be scientifically tapered from 
 
PSYCHOLOGICAL 199 
 
 butt to tip, and to be perfectly balanced. That is why 
 the modern light rod has come to stay. The angler who 
 has once handled a perfect example perfectly married to a 
 line of appropriate weight and taper, and has had time to 
 appreciate the gain in precision, the subtle sense of 
 mastery, with which such a weapon endows him, is unlikely 
 to want to return to the weaver's beam of the early days of 
 the dry fly. The war for a time put an end to the im- 
 portation of those first-rate American split canes — specially 
 built for the English market — which were such a revelation 
 to English anglers. But that very fact afforded an oppor- 
 tunity to the British manufacturer to supply the demand. 
 Happily there seems to be a disposition on the part of some 
 of them, at any rate, to do so. And in this they have an 
 advantage over the American maker in their closer know- 
 ledge of British river conditions. 
 
 The product looks, it is true, a thing of frail insufficiency. 
 But it adds enormously to the charm of angling to be able 
 to master and defeat leviathan with a weapon apparently 
 so inadequate. Really, the stripping of the superfluous 
 leaves it supremely adequate by means of an exquisite 
 adjustment of compensating inadequacies. It is strength 
 in a triumphant combination of weaknesses. 
 
 The hook is inadequate to lift the trout. It is adequate 
 to hold him. The cast is inadequate to hand-line out the 
 fish, but it is fine enough not to scare him from the fly, and 
 with the give of the rod it is adequate to bring him to the 
 net. The rod is inadequate to lift the fish. But its pluck 
 is unending; it is never done; it is always able to yield a 
 bit more, and take it back again immediately. It is the 
 conquest of the strong by the frail. The heavy rod with 
 such a cast could put no more strain on the fish, would not 
 bring him to the net one moment sooner, while it will take 
 it out of the angler's wrist in the long day's fishing in the 
 
200 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 most punishing way; but the first-rate fragility, with the 
 inexhaustible courage of the cane, works sweetly and 
 easily from day's beginning to day's end. As an American 
 friend of mine puts it: " You may hurt it if you run into a 
 wall with it, or if you run a taxi over it, but short of that 
 you cannot damage it." 
 
 There is just one thing more to be said. The choice of 
 a rod is a matter in which temperament should be taken 
 into account. A man of quick, impatient temperament 
 should use a rod of slower action than would be suitable 
 for a man of steadier nerve and phlegmatic disposition. 
 
VIII 
 FRANKLY IMMORAL 
 
 MAKESHIFT. 
 
 I got down to the cricket-field at Winchester in time to 
 see the players returning to the pavilion with the last 
 wicket of the fourth innings down, and I felt stranded. I 
 always had a rod at the keeper's, but my reels were in 
 town. So were my fly-boxes and landing-net, and I 
 had no creel. Still, I had a cast I had bought that 
 morning at the Army and Navy Stores, half a dozen points 
 in the little wallet I carry with me in my breast pocket, 
 and in a little tin box some eight flies that I had dressed 
 by way of passing the time on the way down in the train 
 from Waterloo. Two little starling- winged flies with 
 pale olive hackle and body like a GreenwelTs Glory, 
 two Spinners with crimson seal-fur's body and gold wire 
 rib, two Iron-blue nymphs with jackdaw- throat hackle, 
 and two Tup's Indispensables. There was nothing better 
 to do, and if my friend " Fleur-de-Lys " had been weak 
 enough to leave his Uniqua at the keeper's, it might be 
 possible to rig up enough of an outfit to pass away pleasantly, 
 if not profitably, the June afternoon and evening that 
 were before me. 
 
 So somehow I found myself at the keeper's tucking my 
 trousers into the top of my socks, donning my rubber 
 knee-boots, and taking my little nine-foot Leonard from 
 its case. For " Fleur-de-Lys " had imprudently left his 
 Uniqua with the line he uses for his nine-footer. Also 
 
 201 26 
 
202 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 there was a cap of his with a Red Sedge I had dressed for 
 him left carelessly in it, and a dilapidated Orange Quill. 
 Another rod had left a landing-net of a sort, and yet another 
 a knee-pad. Having taken the precaution to ascertain 
 that none of these rods were expected, I commandeered 
 reel, cap, net, and knee-pad, and proceeded, while the 
 keeper assembled my rod, to damp my cast in a saucer 
 and to put the cast, with a point or two, into my tobacco- 
 pouch emptied and wetted inside for the purpose. Pres- 
 ently the keeper came to me with a fact of grave concern. 
 The reel seat of my rod was too small for the saddle of my 
 reel. Was I done ? No. I had gone too far in my 
 career of crime to be turned back by a little thing like that. 
 There was a rod on the rack, a greenheart with a splice, 
 held together, with a sort of diachylon tape. It would 
 have to do without that support for a few hours. 
 
 So see me presently setting forth to the river in a cap 
 not my own, with a decayed-looking but capacious landing- 
 net, my reel affixed with a plaster, and all the apparatus of 
 the chalk-stream fly fisher except a creel. 
 
 It was half-past three when I reached the river, about the 
 dullest hour of the day, and after watching the stream for 
 ten minutes or so without a sign of a dimple of any sort, 
 I determined to take a look at a carrier hard by to see if 
 some more accommodating trout might not be found. I 
 scared the first, but presently I found a nice enough trout 
 lying out on a gravel patch below a culvert. The Sedge 
 was made for such an occasion, and presently it lit just 
 behind the head of the fish, who promptly turned and had 
 it. It was rather a nuisance carrying him in the landing- 
 net — but, after all, the hut was not far off. To reach it 
 one followed the smaller stream for a few hundred yards 
 — perhaps three. But now a little pale watery dun was 
 in the air. Should it be Tup's Indispensable or the Little 
 Pale Olive with the gold rib ? I always rather fancied 
 
FRANKLY IMMORAL 203 
 
 the latter for the beginning of a small pale watery rise. 
 So did the trout to which I offered it, and presently I was 
 turning out No. 1 to leave the landing-net free for the 
 reception of No. 2. They formed a pleasant-looking brace 
 of very even weight, about one pound six ounces each. 
 I was less fortunate with the only other riser I found before 
 reaching the hut, for he gave a flounder on feeling the hook, 
 and was gone. So was my fly. At the hut I deposited 
 my brace on some flags in the corner, and turned my 
 attention to the larger of the two streams. Curiously the 
 fly on this is seldom the same as that on the smaller branch, 
 and I searched an eddy to find what was on. I found an 
 iron blue or two stationary in the surface, and I changed 
 to an Iron-blue nymph. Very little sign of any movement. 
 But after a while I made out a quiet rise under the far 
 bank quite close in, and three or four times repeated. 
 A switch took the nymph, still wet, across to the objective, 
 but it took a number of offers to get it to the attention of 
 the trout at the right moment. Still, at last, I diagnosed 
 a turn under water, and, raising my rod-point, found 
 myself fast in a strong fish. He put up a good fight, but 
 the little stick, though bent to a hoop, was too much for 
 him, and soon I was back at the hut to deposit him alongside 
 the aforesaid brace. He was the best fish of the day. A 
 careful search of the far bank revealed two more similar 
 rises, and I left a fly in one and was entirely beaten by 
 the other — a hardened and experienced fish that went on 
 rising. He came up and looked at a Tup, but thought 
 better of it in time. So I left him, and went down-stream 
 half a mile to a bend where there are nearly always trout 
 rising if there is anything to rise at. Difficult fish they 
 are, for they have as much attention as a fashionable beauty, 
 and are at least as wary. Four fish were moving in this 
 little bay, and I tackled them with the Tup. Two I put 
 down, but I got the third, and turned over the fourth. 
 
204 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 Above the bend was a tussocky bank with the stream deep 
 and rather slow beneath. So I restored the Sedge to the 
 cast — for it is a likely length for the Sedge — and felt 
 my way up foot by foot, getting and turning back a small 
 trout which had no business in that place of " big yins," 
 and retaining a fourteen-inch fish. 
 
 A little higher, where the stream ran more strongly 
 under my bank, I put up my seal's-fur spinner, and 
 dropping it almost to the inch upon the nose of a cruiser, 
 I surprised him into taking it. I guessed him one pound 
 nine ounces. He went one pound ten ounces later. 
 
 I was now not far from the hut. So I deposited my 
 spoil and commandeered some of " Fleur-de-Lys' " whisky- 
 and-soda, and waited for the evening rise to begin. 
 
 It was slow in coming. There was a little jenny spinner 
 on the water, and, in default of a Jenny spinner, I put up a 
 Tup. I had an astonishing number of rises, but the fly 
 was not right, and it was not taken soundly, for of a dozen 
 or more offers I only connected with one, and he kicked 
 off after a minute's play. The seal's-fur spinner was not 
 taken at all, and I was thankful at dusk to see the blue- 
 winged olive beginning to show and be taken, for I had 
 the almost infallible recipe in that water, the large Orange 
 Quill, and in the quarter of an hour or twenty minutes 
 of the rise I got a nice brace of hard-fighting, well-con- 
 ditioned trout — one of one pound ten ounces, and one of 
 one pound five ounces. And so to mine inn. 
 
 As a matter of precaution I unscrewed the net from the 
 handle and carried the fish in the net, as I was not minded 
 to break the net-ring in the neck of the screw. For the 
 four brace of trout totted up to just over ten pounds. I 
 have often had worse sport on that water when much 
 better equipped, and I always look back with pleasure to 
 that makeshift half-day. 
 
IX 
 EPISODICAL 
 
 ESTABLISHED PRINCIPLES AND TROUT. 
 
 The trout is the most extraordinary creature at bringing 
 to nought, not only theories, but definitely established 
 principles. I thought once that if anything in trout fishing 
 could be called " established " (and, with every disposition 
 towards caution in statement, I recognized that these things 
 must be few) there were two beyond dispute: (i) That a 
 windy evening meant no evening rise; and (2) that when 
 the blue-winged olive was up, the chalk-stream trout will 
 take the Orange Quill. I have before recorded experiences 
 that disproved the former proposition, but here is an 
 account of an earlier evening which wrecked both together. 
 A friend whom I asked to come and fish with me on 
 my own little ditch failed me, and with some hesitation 
 I took my ticket for another destination, which brought 
 me alongside the Itchen shortly before seven o'clock 
 (6 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time) on Saturday, June 24, 1916. 
 A strong and slightly cold wind sprang up late in the 
 afternoon, and showed no sign of dying down, and for some 
 time there was not a sign of a movement of a trout on the 
 water. I had anticipated the fitful, scattered rise of pale 
 watery dun usual at this time of year at that time of day, 
 but there was not even that. So, by way of occupation, 
 I tied on a small Landrail and Hare's-ear Sedge (No. 1 hook), 
 and began to search under the far bank. I cocked up an 
 eye to look at a snipe, and on bringing it back to business 
 
 205 
 
206 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 I was just in time to catch a gleam of a broad brown back 
 turning downwards. For the moment I did not realize 
 that the fish had had my Sedge. When I did so it was 
 too late. That was all for about an hour. At eight o'clock 
 the wind was still strong, but, to my astonishment, a fish 
 here and there began to rise. I thought they were taking 
 pale watery duns, and I put up a small Dotterel Hackle on 
 No. oo hook, and presently hooked and lost a trout, hooked 
 and landed another, and then lost two in succession. This 
 was too large a proportion of losses, and indicated that this 
 was not the right fly, so another had to be looked for. 
 A few minutes' watching convinced me that, despite the 
 wind, now abating a little but still brisk, blue-winged olives 
 were coming up and, what is more, were being taken. 
 Obviously the Orange Quill was indicated. I offered it to 
 four rising fish in succession without the faintest result. 
 I tried one more in vain. Then I tied on a fly which I 
 consider the best imitation of the blue-winged olive to 
 look at that I know, oiled it, and presented it to the nearest 
 banker. The result was so prompt and surprising that 
 he kept the fly. I tied on another and a new point, and 
 promptly established connection with two pound-and-a- 
 halfers in succession. They were the biggest fish I got that 
 evening, and I had another two brace all on the same fly. 
 At intervals, as the light went, I offered the Orange Quill, 
 but in vain, and I had to return to the successful pattern. 
 When I left off at 10.15 p.m. by the clock the wind was 
 still blowing briskly, but I had witnessed one of the longest 
 rises of blue-winged olives I had ever seen, and the fish 
 taking them well all the time. If only I had been able to 
 fish with the precision which is possible on a still evening 
 I ought to have done much better. Still, three and a half 
 brace is not a bad evening's sport. 
 
 Next day I began by exploring some ditches in search of 
 
EPISODICAL 207 
 
 a feeding trout, but, finding none, I turned my thoughts to 
 the bank under which I had seen that broad brown back 
 turning down. The same little Red Sedge was available, 
 and the wind served to place it nicely under the opposite 
 bank. The fourth cast was a shade higher than the pre- 
 ceding casts, and a little dimple under the bank seemed a 
 disappointing result, until the quick, instinctive response 
 had driven on the steel, when the line was torn off with such 
 fury that my reel was three-quarters emptied in a moment. 
 Then a fine trout flung himself into the air, and again and 
 again. This part of my story is irrelevant to the subject 
 of this paper, so I omit to describe the splendid fight this 
 gallant fish put up before my net received his two and a 
 half pounds of weight. After this, though the trout began 
 to rise well, the morning was disappointing, for fly after 
 fly — Dotterel, Greenwell, Tup, Iron-blue dun (dry and 
 wet) — the fish either ignored or took so half-heartedly that 
 the hook did not hold, and one o'clock found me with only 
 one other trout in my bag. Then I noticed a sprinkling 
 of blue-winged olives coming down to the river, and, 
 watching them, I saw one or two taken, but many neglected. 
 Again I tried Orange Quill in vain, then the winged pattern 
 of Blue-winged Olive, getting only a few false rises, until 
 I got one foul-hooked just above the upper Up near the 
 right nostril. I obtained from him a disclosure of the 
 contents of his stomach, and found a long string of blue- 
 winged olive nymphs. A search in my box revealed a 
 single attempt to reproduce the blue-winged olive nymph 
 in seal's fur. It was soon knotted on, filled up with 
 glycerine (a foot of gut also being glycerined) , and despatched 
 above the first feeding trout. He recognized the re- 
 semblance right enough, as did several others between then 
 and three o'clock, and I wound up at the latter hour with 
 four brace to my credit, including my big friend. I have 
 
208 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 often seen blue-winged olives taken in the daytime on 
 other rivers, British and foreign, but this is the first time 
 I ever saw a rise to it during the daytime on the Itchen. 
 So there is another established law broken. 
 
 It was interesting to note that the fish which were taking 
 blue-winged olives could be clearly distinguished by the 
 size and shape of the swirl, by day just as by night. 
 
 Saturday, July I, was a mixed kind of day. Fine 
 warm morning, but windy; afternoon, windy and cold, 
 with a fine drizzle about five o'clock. Then a burst of 
 warm sun, but no drop of the wind. I got on to the water 
 about seven, and again, despite the wind and despite the 
 fact that I was fishing an open reach, the fish began to rise 
 before eight. Again there was a plentiful supply of blue- 
 winged olive ; again the trout refused the Orange Quill until 
 the wind dropped about 9.45 p.m. (summer time), after 
 which they took it well; and again three and a half brace 
 succumbed to my little rod. 
 
 AN ABNORMAL DAY. 
 
 It is generally believed by chalk-stream anglers that a 
 rise of fly — preferably duns — is necessary to bring the 
 trout into a taking humour. But that, if a good working 
 hypothesis, is not invariably true; and the day following the 
 Coronation was, upon the Itchen, one of the exceptions 
 to the general rule. The wind, which was very light, blew 
 from the south-east, almost directly upstream, the sun 
 was bright, and the water glassy clear. A survey from 
 the railway bridge decided me to open my campaign 
 from the left bank. I was on the water soon after nine, 
 but ten struck, and eleven, without a sign of a dun in 
 the air or on the water, and -except for a ten or eleven inch 
 grayling not a rise broke the surface of the water. There 
 are limits to the patience of most anglers, and mine 
 
EPISODICAL 209 
 
 ends sooner than that of the most patient. So I began, 
 when things got to this pass, to examine the herbage for 
 sedges. Finding one or two about, and, in the course of 
 doing so, bolting two or three trout from under the bank, 
 I knotted on my favourite Landrail and Hare's-ear Sedge 
 dressed on a No. 1 hook, and proceeded to beat slowly 
 up my own bank. How slowly I proceeded may be 
 judged by the fact that it took me three hours to work 
 up six hundred yards of bank, dropping my fly into every 
 likely corner, over the edges of cut weeds collected along 
 the bank, in quiet bays between tussocks, in little clear 
 spaces between weeds, and wherever there was a little 
 fast run of water against any excrescence on the bank. 
 It was not long before the first trout took hold, making a 
 ring so small and delicate as to be scarcely noticeable, 
 but it was enough, and he found his way to the net and 
 to the basket. Then came a grayling of a pound and a half, 
 lying a little farther out. Then a second a little smaller. 
 Then a run of bad luck due to some bad points, trout 
 after trout hooked and lost, sometimes breaking in the 
 strike, sometimes later in playing, a thing which had not 
 happened to me for many a year. But by degrees, 
 picking up here a trout and there a trout, the bag worked 
 its way by 3.30 to the comfortable total of four brace, 
 including the brace of grayling. And all the while not 
 a dun or sedge showed on the water. The strap of the 
 bag began to cut uncomfortably hard into the shoulder, and 
 an adjournment to the lodgings was taken for a siesta 
 and a meal before the evening rise. On the Tuesday 
 evening there had been quite a good evening rise in spite 
 of a rough and cold wind — quite an abnormal experience. 
 On this occasion there was rain as well as wind, but, in 
 order to see if the abnormal occasion would repeat itself, 
 in despite of rain as well as wind, my companion and I sallied 
 
 27 
 
210 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 forth and stayed out till dark. By 8.30 another trout 
 and another grayling had been basketed, but there was 
 not any fly in evidence. Then, in spite of a cold wind and 
 continuing drizzle, there came on a strong rise to some 
 pale dun ; but neither of us succeeded in fixing its identity 
 closely enough to provide the taking imitation. Had we 
 done so, we might with luck have been able to point the 
 more definite moral from what was decidedly an abnormal 
 day. 
 
 ONE OF LIFE'S LITTLE CAST IRONIES. 
 
 Just at the top of a club water on a tributary of the 
 Wey stands the keeper's cottage in a nook which Sutton 
 Palmer has selected to illustrate as one of the beauty 
 spots of Surrey, itself not the least beautiful of counties. 
 The stream hereabouts runs from fifteen to twenty feet 
 in width, with a nice pace on it and plenty of twists 
 and turns in it, and all sorts of little backwaters and 
 eddies. 
 
 At the point where the stream gathers to its narrowest 
 below the keeper's cottage a big ash- tree leans across from 
 the right bank at so violent a slant that a tall man walking 
 along the left bank has to stoop to avoid injury, and just 
 above the bole the current has carved a little bay in the 
 bank which forms a perfect lie-by for a fish which desires to 
 keep out of the strength of the stream, but to be ready 
 for any provender which may be brought down under his 
 bank. In the autumn of 1915 this bay had a constant 
 occupant in a dark-coloured fish, which throughout the 
 season had defied the allurements of the members of a club 
 which contained some good average fishermen, and of some 
 guests who were something above the average. He was a 
 fascinating fish, and when he was moving it was difficult 
 to refrain from spending much more time on him than was 
 
EPISODICAL 2ir 
 
 for the good of the creel. And so one of the guests referred 
 to found on an August afternoon when a sprinkling of pale 
 watery duns was coming down, and the trout's neb 
 was tipping up through the surface at intervals. 
 
 Crouching low a little down-stream of the tree, and 
 negotiating with difficulty the rising bank to his right and 
 behind him and the tree bole and branches above him, 
 the angler switched a short line to the trout, and covered 
 him again and again with all possible neatness for a time. 
 Then he made a mistake, and the fish slid up a foot or so 
 under a length of wire which had at one time fenced the 
 edge of the wood opposite, but now had fallen nearly to 
 the water's edge. The angler gave him a rest, and presently 
 the fish, with a suspicious eye, turned backwards, and began 
 to rise again, but kept close to the wire. Presently the 
 angler cast again, but to the difficulties he had hitherto been 
 negotiating was added the problem of getting his Tup's 
 Indispensable under the wire. Presently the fly dropped 
 over the wire and held. The spectator offered to go round 
 and release it. But the angler, of a more patient tempera- 
 ment, declined this aid, and let the line drag in the water 
 in the hope that the hook might come away. The finer 
 end of the gut was almost over the fish's back. Suddenly 
 he dropped back a few inches and tilted his head, and 
 as he did so there was a distinct jar of the line. The fish 
 had taken one of the knots on the gut. The angler lay 
 low, and presently — whether by aid of the tug of the fish 
 this deponent sayeth not — the fly came away from the wire 
 and dropped on to the stream. The next cast lit like 
 gossamer exactly right, and in a moment the trout was on. 
 He proved to be just over a pound, and though above the 
 average for the stream, not by any means of exceptional 
 size for the water. But it was a satisfaction to see him 
 brought to basket after his long immunity from capture, 
 
212 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 and no small part of the satisfaction lay in the fact that 
 by one of life's little ironies he had possibly, by his tug 
 at the gut, released the fly, and so contributed to his own 
 undoing. 
 
 ANOTHER OF LIFE'S LITTLE CAST IRONIES. 
 
 It was where the Enz runs under a primitive log bridge 
 at the head of a big flat, bounded by the timber-yard at 
 Calmbach. On the right side below the bridge the bank 
 was camp-sheathed, and about a foot above the water a 
 fringe of extremely adhesive herbage grew out of a gap 
 between the boards, which were laid lengthways and not 
 perpendicularly. 
 
 One July afternoon in 1907 I crossed the bridge and 
 was about to walk down the timber-yard, when just below 
 me I saw a handsome trout a long way on towards two 
 pounds. I stopped dead, but unfortunately he had seen 
 me, and he made off. I made a mental note, however, of 
 the particular flower-head under which he had lain, and 
 as I came upstream again I made two or three tentative 
 casts to the spot. Several times I covered the place per- 
 fectly, but my Tup remained unappreciated. Then I made 
 a cast which took the gut over the herbage, and promised 
 me a fully-fledged tangle. I thought that my chance of 
 the fish was all up for the moment, but I crawled up, as 
 much out of sight as possible, and, lying on my face, 
 sought to lift the gut by hand from the clump of blossom 
 through which it passed, and taking the line betwixt finger 
 and thumb I raised it and drew it gently. For a moment 
 it came easily. Then, to my astonishment, the gut was 
 jerked from between my fingers. I leapt to my feet, 
 rushed to my rod and raised it, to find that not only were 
 line and fly clear of the weed, but that the fly was firmly 
 fixed in the trout's jaw. There are no finer fighters any- 
 
EPISODICAL 213 
 
 where than the Enz trout, and it was a good five minutes 
 (and seemed like ten) before I could prove that the weight 
 of this one was one pound fifteen ounces. 
 
 A BORROWED ROD. 
 
 In early June the Valley of the Erlaubnitz is a dream of 
 heat. On either side of its fringing water meadows there 
 stand, either upon the level or stretching up the lower 
 slopes of the hills, larch poles in serried rows, evidences of 
 the heroic German endeavour to accomplish the impossible 
 — to assuage the unassuageable Wurstphalian thirst — 
 while higher up the slopes, and clustering close round the 
 picturesque oolitic limestone crags, no less serried pines — 
 planted by the same foreseeing and provident German 
 mind — made provision to cope with the almost equally 
 unassuageable national demand for toothpicks. But what- 
 ever their ultimate destination, the effect, alike of pine 
 and hop, is to protect and shelter the river valley, and to 
 conduce to an activity and a fulness of insect life for which 
 there is no parallel on any English river. Alders in this 
 season hum round the alder bushes in countless myriads. 
 Sedges of all sorts and sizes — many of them large and 
 juicy — flutter along the river banks from morn to dewy 
 eve, and long after into the dark, when the law has put 
 a stop to angling. Of stone flies there is copious variety. 
 May flies in their season are alike splendid in quantity and 
 quality, while the rises of upwinged duns are to be envied 
 in Hants and Herts. 
 
 Duns and May fly come on at intervals, but there is 
 seldom a moment of the day or night when sedges of some 
 sort or another are not offering temptation to trout and 
 grayling, scuttering along the surface in the pursuit of 
 happiness, or dibbing thereon in the discharge of function. 
 So it happens that the trout of Erlaubnitz, though sus- 
 
214 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 picious enough to drag in a tiny fly, are peculiarly amenable 
 to the seduction of a large fly corresponding generally to 
 some trichopterous type. This the native fishermen — both 
 numerous and keen — know well; and, as a result, every 
 good fish who haunts the open has every evening during 
 the summer one team at least of large flies, more or less 
 sedgy in character, drawn across his nose, and Sunday 
 gives him even larger opportunities. Thus it comes that 
 the stock of large trout feeding in the open is early weeded 
 out, or driven to safer quarters under umbrageous boughs 
 or tangles of thorn or roots, or in deep pockets among 
 lily pads or water-weed. It is here that the wandering 
 angler who has learned to drift a fly close under the oppo- 
 site bank, or to float it down a narrow runnel in the grasses, 
 makes his account, and has such an enormous advantage 
 over the native sportsman. He, poor man, with a cast 
 that must last him one, two, or even three seasons, cannot 
 afford to risk flies or tackle by casting among the boughs, 
 and his team of three or four flies would soon be in diffi- 
 culties if he attempted to extract the big trout from their 
 weedy fastnesses. Yet it is wonderful what he will do 
 with his primitive tackle. We have seen a rustic angler 
 with ten or eleven feet of hazel, tipped with an umbrella 
 rib from one of Fox's " Paragon " frames, laying his 
 coarse lures and heavy line with exquisite neatness and 
 accuracy across eighteen or twenty yards of water. In 
 the days when the May fly is coming on he makes much 
 hay of the foible of his trout for a large dragged fly, and 
 with a white May fly with a brown cork body and a ginger 
 hackle he will at times fill portentous baskets when your 
 dry-fly expert's creel is comparatively empty. One gets 
 lessons that it is not perfection of rod or tackle that makes 
 the fly fisherman. Once in June, 1909, it befell the 
 Englander to have his fly rod disabled in the course of a 
 
EPISODICAL 215 
 
 promising afternoon. Returning to the inn, whose water 
 he had been fishing, he was met by the kindly hostess with 
 the offer " Brauchen Sie dies" ("Use this"). This was 
 a three-piece rod of assorted parentage. The butt was 
 from a green-heart pike rod of sorts, the middle joint came 
 from a Castleconnell of uncertain age, and was fastened 
 in with an extra ferrule to make it jam and so as to show 
 the rings at the side, while the top, spliced to the middle 
 joint by a piece of stout string, was once an integral part 
 of an eight-foot American bait-casting rod. The top 
 carried its rings on the upper side. Thus, though a line 
 put through the rings pursued a spiral course around the 
 rod from butt to top, though the rod was a flail of flails, 
 the angler had a weapon of some sort in his hands and 
 two hours to use it in; so he put his pride in his pocket 
 and his reel to the reel seat, ran his line through the 
 rings, and returned to the water-side. Just above a long 
 weir-cauld the fishing began, and just over the edge of a 
 broad bank of lilies — those with the pink lanceolate leaves 
 and the exquisite wax-pink flower which come at the end 
 of July — three trout were rising. With painful strain of 
 a damaged wrist, a Red Sedge was got over No. 1, and a 
 trout of one and a quarter pounds was promptly hustled 
 ashore. No. 2 was a somewhat similar fish, and was 
 similarly treated. No. 3 took the same fly, and after 
 several times displaying in the air proportions proclaiming 
 " two pounds," he allowed his chin to be got over the edge 
 of the lilies, and he was being steered to the net when, just 
 as he was in reach of the net, the hook came unstuck, 
 and for a moment he lay on his side on top of the lilies. 
 The lame German gillie made a desperate dig under him 
 with a landing-net, but the mass of foliage and roots was 
 too dense, and he failed. So dense was it that it took 
 Titanic struggles on the part of the fish to worm himself 
 
216 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 into the shelter of the lilies, and for more than a minute 
 his struggling tail stood upright out of the water, the mark 
 for frantic efforts on the part of the gillie. A little higher 
 up another pounder came to net, and then the angler, 
 standing among bushes and under a railway bridge, flicked 
 a Crosbie Alder upstream to a cruising fish, and got a 
 bouncer of about two and a quarter pounds. 
 
 Another fish of one and a half pounds followed at the 
 next bend, and then the angler came to a spot where he 
 wished to put in practice one of his pet and frequently 
 successful devices. A willow-tree had fallen into the 
 water. The bank above it had been wattled, but was 
 eroded by the current, and the wattling had been torn 
 away, leaving the uprights only in the river-bed, two feet 
 from the side, and standing three or four inches out of 
 the water. Against one of these had accumulated a mass 
 of thorn and bramble. Above and at the side were dense 
 weed-beds, flushing the surface except for a narrow channel, 
 and on the bank a big thorn-bush, whose boughs dropped 
 to the water and trailed with bramble and other debris. 
 Between the bank and the upright, on which the thorn 
 and bramble had lodged, lay a big trout — three pounds 
 was not an unfair estimate of his weight — and it was the 
 angler's design to get him out of this impossible holt — not 
 by force, but by guile — by hooking him and letting him 
 run free and imagine himself lightly hooked, so that he 
 might rush out into the open and try to kick himself free 
 upon the surface. 
 
 Alas ! it was not to be. The borrowed rod, whatever 
 its virtues, was not delicate in the strike, and perhaps a 
 tired wrist was not well designed to mitigate its hardness. 
 Nothing could have been nicer than the way the fly dropped 
 above the trout. For a moment it drifted slowly, then 
 a huge neb came up and annexed it. Alas ! the response 
 
EPISODICAL 217 
 
 was too definite. There was a frantic wallow and a huge 
 wave as the frightened fish dashed out between the up- 
 rights into the open. If only the gut had held and the 
 line run free ! 
 
 A sympathetic rain began to fall in a soft drizzle, and 
 turned the angler homewards. Just below the railway 
 bridge he heard a sound like a huge kiss, and where the 
 current swung into a large, slow back eddy he located a 
 nice cruising trout, which was absorbing stray morsels 
 with great enjoyment. It took no time to knot on a 
 Hare's- ear Sedge — as large as could be found in the box — 
 and to drop it, when the cruiser's back was turned, well 
 in his beat among the scum. The first time round the 
 fish did not see it, nor the second, nor the third. The 
 fly began to sink, and finally went under. The fish was 
 too near to let the angler pick out his fly for a fresh cast. 
 Was that a flash of a white belly under the scum ? If not, 
 what is the meaning of the screaming reel and that big 
 trout yonder flinging himself violently out of the water 
 time after time some twenty yards away ? By degrees 
 he was brought back, and the best of gillies netted him 
 out — as perfect a three-pounder as river-side ever saw. 
 
 A LOCAL FALL. 
 
 It had become a disastrous day, even for August. Four 
 of us in the water meadows, with an average of a mile of 
 water apiece in the twin streams, and only one of us had 
 a fish when we went in at five o'clock, and that was a 
 grayling. The day had been still but not hot, but there 
 had been no life in the air and no rise of fly, and scarcely 
 a fish had moved all day. Yet as, on my way in, I crossed 
 a corner of a meadow to reach a plank bridge which 
 straddled the mouth of the big tributary meadow drain 
 that discharges into the Eyrie length, it seemed that the 
 
 28 
 
218 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 air was all gauzy and shimmery with the wings of in- 
 numerable spinners tossing in their love-dances. So that 
 even if there were no fresh rise of fly to bring the trout 
 on in the evening, there was just a chance of sufficient 
 fall of spinner to do the trick. The prospects, however, 
 were not such as to bring us out specially early after dinner, 
 and it was only just sundown that I found myself at the 
 bottom of the Eyrie beat. It did not look encouraging. 
 Not a fin was moving, not a fly could I see on the water, 
 and for the time of year the temperature was cool. So 
 with what patience I could muster I set myself to wait, 
 with my eye on the deep run under the tussocks opposite 
 the Eyrie. But the minutes slipped by and not a nose 
 put up, and after half an hour's wait I moved out of the 
 Eyrie and prospected slowly up my beat with my hopes 
 fading as the minutes sped by and the darkness gathered. 
 At length I reached the bend where the big drain runs in. 
 Here there is a big eddy in which at dusk one may often find 
 two or three cruising trout busy in absorbing spinners. By 
 this I paused for a while, for it was my last hope. But still 
 the darkness gathered and nothing moved. Stay ! What 
 was that ? It sounded like a rise, but there was no ring 
 anywhere. I waited a moment. It was repeated, up- 
 stream to my left. Cautiously I moved up to the corner 
 to see whether a trout was feeding in the mouth of the 
 drain. None. But there was a " gluck " again, and still 
 to my left up the drain, beyond two cross-drains which 
 entered it on either side ten or twelve yards up. Yes. 
 A fish was rising in the slow, almost still water of the drain, 
 and rising, too, in a way which, to my mind, indicated 
 spinners. A fish did I say ? There were one, two, three, 
 four, and all busy. It did not take long to knot on a 
 Pheasant-tail Spinner, and, creeping over the plank bridge 
 which crossed the side-drain, cautiously, so as to send no 
 
EPISODICAL 219 
 
 warning wave into the drain, I got the fly to the lowest fish 
 right and turned him down so as not to disturb the others. 
 We fought it out at the corner, and I netted him out. The 
 other three were still busy, and it did not take me long to 
 establish a connection with No. 2. I killed him also without 
 disturbing the others; and then No. 3. It was now pretty 
 dark, but I wanted two brace, and I cast, therefore, for 
 No. 4. Whether it was my fault or not I cannot say, but 
 probably something was wrong with my timing, for though 
 the hook seemed to hit his jaw with quite a jar, he was 
 off with a flounder. So I had to be content with my leash 
 — one pound six ounces, one pound ten ounces, and one 
 pound thirteen ounces — all caught in a place where I had 
 never before seen trout rising of an evening, and all attracted 
 by the local fall of spinner. It must have been local, for 
 not one of the other rods saw a trout rise during the 
 evening. 
 
 AT THE SECOND CULVERT. 
 
 I have never quite forgiven the farmer who first, some 
 seven years back, began to maintain an open post-and-rail 
 fence across the carrier a few yards below the second 
 culvert after one enters the water meadows from the 
 Abbot's Hyde on the west side of the valley, and fortified 
 it with barbed wire to prevent the big Herefordshire steers 
 from wading up the gravel shallow and breaking into the 
 lush meadow on the right bank. The object was laudable 
 enough. The method was what I objected to. Other 
 farmers had effected the same purpose by erecting their 
 fortifications entirely on the eastern bank in continuation 
 of the barbed-wire line which still runs along all the deeper 
 part of the carrier. Great moments have I had on that 
 carrier in days gone by, the great scenes usually on the 
 shallow, gravelly pool just below the culvert. The carrier 
 
220 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 runs off from the main river on the east, and after a straight 
 course of some two hundred and fifty yards or so, during 
 which it receives the contributions of innumerable ditches, 
 bends at right angles just above the culvert which carries 
 the farm road that leads across the meadows from Abbot's 
 Hyde back to the main river. 
 
 Duns are seldom seen in any quantity on this carrier, 
 and as a consequence such few trout as it from time to 
 time contains, though generally fat and lusty, are more 
 amenable to the persuasions of a fair-sized fly than are 
 the dun-fed beauties of the river proper. They have, 
 moreover, no set feeding times, and there is always a 
 chance with one of them, provided the approach be made 
 with becoming reverence. The best, perhaps, of my ex- 
 periences under the older conditions was one August 
 Saturday afternoon, somewhere about 1905. The year 
 was distinguished by exceptional flights of large dusky 
 ants; and one day in London I caught a few that were 
 running on the stucco of a friend's gateway, and when I 
 got home I dressed an imitation in pig's-wool. The three 
 or four patterns I turned out were rough, uncouth-looking 
 objects — two blobs of rusty dun pig's-wool with a waist 
 between — the blobs trimmed into some semblance of 
 roundness by means of curved scissors. There was a 
 sparse but stiff short hackle turned twice behind the upper 
 blob. 
 
 The following Saturday I reached the keeper's some- 
 where about 2 p.m., and donning waders, etc., I made my 
 way, rod in hand, across the meadows by the farm road. 
 Approaching the second culvert I became aware of a buzz 
 of insects hovering over it, and was delighted to find my 
 friends, the big dusky ants, in force ; still more delighted to 
 see that within thirty yards below the culvert were no less 
 than three good trout busy with the ants in three successive 
 
EPISODICAL 22i 
 
 pools between weeds. Creeping cautiously across the 
 carrier on the upstream side of the road, keeping low so 
 as to be out of sight, and opening the gate wide so as to get 
 through as near the upstream side as possible, I took a 
 wide detour in the meadow and got below the lowest of 
 the three trout. It did not take long to knot on a big 
 Ant. Hardly had it lit above the fish before my line was 
 taut, and my little nine-footer was making the arch of 
 beauty. Down-stream the trout was bustled to the ready 
 net. Now for No. 2. No less willing was he, and in a 
 moment he was on. Down he came plunging, leaving 
 No. 3 quite unscared, and after some anxious moments the 
 net was put under him. The third fish was on the gravel 
 shallow just below the culvert, and took the fly as gaily as 
 the others. He ran for the culvert, but the little rod was 
 equal to its job and beat him down. None of the trio 
 reached two pounds, but none was under one and three- 
 quarters, and all were as handsome as pictures. 
 
 That was an exceptional twenty minutes. Seldom is 
 more than one good fish to be found within, say, a hundred 
 yards of the culvert, and the gravel shallow (with a retreat 
 to the culvert handy) is the usual spot to find him. The 
 new fence run across at the bottom of the gravelly shallow 
 has not altered that. When there is a trout thereabouts, 
 that is where he will be out to feed. What it has altered 
 is the chances of getting at a fish in such a position. 
 
 Still, no position is absolutely impregnable, and twice 
 in two successive years, by good luck, perhaps, as much as 
 by good management, I have extracted a good trout from 
 the culvert pool above that abomination of barbed wire 
 and wood. 
 
 The first occasion was in June, and the grass in the 
 meadow to the west had not been cut. The keeper had 
 told me there was a good trout at the culvert ; and, risking 
 
222 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 the farmer's wrath, I had entered the meadow, waded 
 
 down a drain so as to damage the grass as little as possible, 
 
 crossed a table and walked up another drain till near the 
 
 aforesaid abomination; then snuggled down in the grass 
 
 and crawled on my stomach till I could see the mouth of 
 
 the culvert and a broad tail fanning half in sunlight and 
 
 half in shadow. There was a No. i Landrail and Hare's- 
 
 ear Sedge on my cast, and as, uncomfortably, I drew off 
 
 a little line to get my fly to the spot, the trout dropped 
 
 a couple of feet and took something, and again moved up. 
 
 He did not keep still for many moments together; he kept 
 
 moving up and down and from side to side, and in ten 
 
 minutes may have taken three or four flies. Several times 
 
 I chucked a fly which could have covered him if he had 
 
 stayed where he was when I slung. At last, whether 
 
 owing to the draught up the culvert or some other stroke 
 
 of luck unexplained, I switched the little Sedge right up 
 
 under the culvert farther than I could have conceived it 
 
 possible. Next moment there was a smacking suck and 
 
 my trout was on. Where I lay I was level with the fence, 
 
 and I dared put no pressure on the fish to bring him down, 
 
 for it meant a certain bolt under the fence, probably on 
 
 the far side of the middle stake, and then good-bye, possibly 
 
 a smashed top for my delicate little split cane. So I lay 
 
 still, and keeping a light touch only on my fish, I could 
 
 feel him beating savagely under the arch, but too puzzled 
 
 at what was troubling him to bolt. After some moments 
 
 of this he made a rush into the deep pool on the upstream 
 
 side of the culvert. There I began to fight him. I was 
 
 bound to keep him from getting round the bend. I could 
 
 not let him get to weeds on the left, nor into a rat-hole in 
 
 the northern bank, nor into the lily pads in the backwater 
 
 farther up on the left. So I held him firmly enough to 
 
 keep him fighting, but not for quite a while hard enough 
 
EPISODICAL 223 
 
 to bring him down. Gradually he yielded and came back 
 into the arch. Then I began to get my net out and down 
 to the water's edge, and at the critical moment when I 
 turned him down I stripped my line by hand through the 
 rings, and rushed my fish tumbling demoralized into the 
 net just above the middle stake of the fence. He was 
 two pounds one ounce, and in fine order. At the moment 
 I thought him well earned. Looking back I see how 
 easily the result might have been reversed but for un- 
 imaginable luck. 
 
 The other instance happened in this wise. The weeds 
 in the carrier had been cut in late July of 1914, and had 
 not had much time to grow again. The sedges, however, 
 overhung the carrier from one side, and I thought it possible 
 on a still and hot August afternoon I might find a trout 
 in their shade by means of my favourite Landrail and 
 Hare's-ear Sedge. So again I waded down a drain, crossed 
 a table at the bottom near a cross-dyke, and getting along- 
 side the carrier began to search the edge under the sedges 
 by a cast every yard or two. I hooked and lost one nice 
 fish, and had come almost to the abomination aforesaid, 
 when some instinct bade me not to show my head. 
 Crouching down I drew several yards off my reel in excess 
 of the length I meant to cast, and dropped my fly a yard 
 or more over and across the fence. Striking at the sound 
 I found myself fast, and, the fish darting down-stream under 
 the fence, fortunately my side of the centre stake. Loosing 
 my casting line, I flung all I could up over the fence towards 
 the culvert and let off more as I ran up to the fence. By 
 the time I reached it my reel was all but empty, but I had 
 time to turn my rod-point under the fence and to pass the 
 whole rod under. Then with all my line out I had to 
 follow and hold a strong fish fighting down an almost 
 weedless carrier, and stop him before he got to the cross- 
 
224 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 dyke, which would have stopped me, but not him. It was 
 a breathless run, but I got below the fish in time, turned 
 him upstream again, and killed him when half-way home. 
 He scaled one pound fourteen ounces. 
 
 I am driven to speculate whether the excitement of 
 these two incidents may not have been worth more than 
 the easier conquests of the earlier conditions. 
 
 BOBBING REED. 
 
 It is curious how the incidents of a day of a bumper 
 basket will often leave no special memory behind them 
 apart from the total of numbers or weight, while some 
 little incident in the taking, stalking, or losing of a single 
 fish, perhaps of no great size, on a day otherwise undis- 
 tinguished, will stay on in the memory and recur freshly 
 again and again after the lapse of years. Such a little 
 incident was the following : 
 
 On a day in August some fifteen years gone I had fished 
 upstream with but modest success until about three o'clock, 
 when I arrived at a big red-brick bridge spanning my 
 chalk stream, standing below which on the right bank I 
 saw the current setting strongly against the pier on the 
 far side, carrying all flotsam swiftly along the brickwork 
 into the tumbling hurly-burly of the eddy below — an eddy 
 which was often the haunt of big trout; but they seldom 
 seemed to venture up under the bridge. 
 
 For an hour or more not a dimple had marked the surface, 
 and I recalled my forgotten sandwiches and took my seat 
 upon a cattle fence commanding a view of the eddy and 
 the river under the span. Often on days following rain 
 I had heard the drip of water through the arch on to the 
 surface; but there had been a spell of drought, and this 
 was a dry day. So, when presently I heard a sound like 
 the fall of a drop of water on the surface, and presently 
 
EPISODICAL 225 
 
 another, I looked to see where it could be falling. I did 
 not see another falling, but presently I heard the sound 
 again, and, after an interval, again; but still no splash. 
 A little intrigued, I watched, and again I heard the sound, 
 but saw nothing to suggest a cause. I seemed, however, 
 to place it near the lower end of the arch, and there, caught 
 against the pier on the far side, I saw a long spear of giant 
 rush, and when the dripping sound recurred I saw the 
 rush give a little jump, as if rebounding after the drop of 
 water struck it. Still not satisfied, I kept my eye on the 
 reed, and presently became aware of a tiny pale dun 
 being swung along the current, close to the arch, hugging 
 the brickwork, then alongside the reed, and — then the 
 reed bobbed again and the dripping sound recurred. Just 
 long enough I waited to see the incident recur. Then, 
 knotting on a pale pattern of Tup's Indispensable on a 
 No. 00 hook, I began to let out line. Presently I thought 
 I had enough to cover the eighteen or twenty yards of 
 water between me and the farther pier of the bridge, and 
 I let my Indispensable down on the water. It was, of 
 course, a sheer fluke, and I daresay I should not have 
 done the same thing again in a hundred, perhaps not in 
 a thousand, casts, but the fly lit within an inch of the reed 
 about two-thirds of the way up it. The current took it 
 swiftly down — again there was that dripping sound, again 
 the bobbing reed — and in a moment a beautiful yellow 
 trout leapt a yard into the air and fell back with a re- 
 sounding smack. He did not, however, shake out the hook, 
 and presently I laid him, decently wrapped in a napkin, 
 along with his predecessors of the morning. He was only 
 one pound five ounces, but somehow his capture gave me 
 extraordinary satisfaction. 
 
 29 
 
226 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 Ten years later, on a small Surrey brook, I was accom- 
 panied by a friend one August afternoon of a day that 
 had proved aggravating and disappointing to a degree, 
 when we saw a giant rush, which had caught against the 
 herbage growing on the far bank, move as if struck by 
 something small. " A rat," said my friend. " A trout 
 for a tanner," said I. " I know that bobbing-reed trick." 
 The hackled Red spinner on my cast was good enough to 
 try with. It lit at the first instance within two inches 
 of the reed and went under. As it did so the reed bobbed 
 again in the swirl of the pounder which came up and 
 fastened, and was presently carefully restored to the water. 
 
 SPORTING HAZARDS ON A BERKSHIRE BROOK. 
 
 The drought of 191 1 must live long in the memories of 
 fly fishermen, and it may be that in the rough streams 
 commonly known as wet-fly waters sport was at a stand- 
 still for months; but for those whom fate or fortune con- 
 fines to waters within easy access of London there was still 
 sport to be had through the most blazing weather — and 
 sport, at that, at times scarcely inferior to that to be had 
 in more normal seasons. Yet it was with little hope of 
 trout, though with a fixed determination to enjoy the 
 lovely conditions of country and weather, that I descended 
 the hill one mid-September day into a Berkshire valley, 
 traversed by one of the most exquisite winding brooks 
 in the countryside. If the banks are tangled with a wild 
 profusion of bramble and thorn, willow-herb, and mullein; 
 if wild cherry, hazel, and ash are interspersed with alder and 
 willow along its course, with marshy stretches dense with 
 sedgy tussock and flags intervening at intervals, the shallow 
 stretches of the little river-bed are no less overgrown with 
 flag and cress bed, giant bulrush, water crow's-foot, and 
 other vegetation, while snaggy roots of the overhanging 
 
EPISODICAL 227 
 
 trees, stumps that have fallen into the water, and cut 
 brambles piled with drift weed, hanging, perhaps, to 
 broken lengths of barbed wire, provide the trout of this 
 gin clear little river with such shelter as to embolden them 
 to feed at all seasons when food is to the fore. Between 
 these weed-beds, snags, and other obstructions the water 
 runs briskly, scouring little stretches of gravel and shallow 
 silver sand to a dazzling cleanness. Out upon these 
 stretches the smaller trout lie in wait for the hatch of duns 
 which, sooner or later, will provide them with entertain- 
 ment; and it is hard to look over the edge anywhere 
 along the course without driving upstream one or more of 
 them, to startle and send to hiding the better fish above. 
 
 At the spot where I put my rod together the river-bed 
 was too densely fringed on both sides to permit of my 
 casting a line from the bank, and I was thankful for the 
 forethought which had provided me with rubber boots 
 reaching to the knee, and thus enabled me to enter the 
 water and prosecute my campaign from midstream or 
 from under banks, as seemed best from moment to moment. 
 The first thing, however, was to stand still awhile to allow 
 my startled friends to regain their composure. It was 
 wonderful how quickly they did so, seeing that where I 
 stood the water barely covered my ankles and there were 
 few parts of the brook where it would reach to mid-calf — 
 say eighteen inches deep. There was no harm in waiting, 
 as there was yet no fly up, and there were all sorts of 
 delightful country sights and sounds to occupy my atten- 
 tion. A pair of water-rail in particular charmed me with 
 the grace of their movements as they ran along exposed 
 stretches of margin which in ordinary seasons would have 
 been under water. Presently I made out a trout, at a 
 guess a short three-quarters of a pound, lying in the neck 
 of a run near the left bank, a cast up stream. By his 
 
228 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 poise he was ready to feed, if not actually feeding, and I 
 despatched a small Red Sedge — no duns being yet up — 
 to light a foot above him. He flashed at it — but either he 
 missed or I did — and he went to cover. His doing so, 
 however, made it safe for me to move up two or three 
 steps to within casting distance of a delightfully snaggy 
 holt. On the left bank the crumpled roots of an over- 
 hanging alder turned the current outwards towards mid- 
 stream, where it poured over a brilliant bed of water crow's- 
 foot into a weed-pocket, and the rest of the stream was 
 driven by a weed-piled snag at right angles to the course 
 into the roots of a chestnut which overhung the right 
 bank with its feet in the water. In great good-humour 
 I waited for the manifestations which were due from so 
 promising a spot, and I had not long to wait. A few 
 minutes after eleven o'clock chimed a dimple occurred on 
 the edge of the crow's-foot, and it was repeated in quick 
 time. Clearly some upwinged fly was being taken, either 
 in the nymph or spinner stage, for no dun was on the 
 water. I took off my small Sedge and put up a chestnut- 
 coloured Seal's-fur-bodied Spinner, and the first time I 
 got it right to my friend he took it. He was only a half- 
 pounder, and I turned him in down-stream with care, for 
 while I had been fishing to him I had seen a suspicious 
 movement in the elbow of water just above the alder roots. 
 It was not an easy feat, with the bushes behind me on my 
 left hand and a drooping branch from the big tree over- 
 hanging, to get my fly to the spot — twice I was hung up 
 in the process, but each time the fly came away kindly — 
 yet presently it dropped lightly on the spot I aimed at. 
 There was no response till the fourth or fifth attempt. 
 Then, just as the chance seemed past, a grey-brown neb 
 with open pink mouth flashed at my fly, and I was not 
 too late to pull in the point. 
 
EPISODICAL 229 
 
 The line, however, was by luck almost slack, and the fish, 
 instead of going to snag or weed, began to thrash about 
 on the surface; and before he could bethink himself I had 
 steered him down-stream into comparatively open water. 
 Here it was not a long business ere the net received his 
 sixteen ounces. 
 
 Cautiously retracing my steps I waited to see if there 
 was anyone at home in the hole under the chestnut roots. 
 Presently there was a rise in the eye of the run just above 
 the midstream snag which divided the current. So I had 
 to cast across the stump to reach my fish. On ordinary 
 days I should have been hung up to a certainty, but this 
 was one of the days when I could do nothing wrong. I had 
 no intention of hooking my fish and having to pull him into 
 the snag, so I determined he should see my fly and come 
 back for it. I therefore cast wide of him to the other 
 side of the gut of the stream, and slightly below the spot 
 where he continued to break water. Sure enough he 
 came after the fly with his head down-stream, and was 
 hooked and steered away from the snag and out of the 
 rooty hole before he had time to turn. He was just above 
 the twelve-inch limit which I had set myself, but I turned 
 him down without regret and moved on. 
 
 To pass the snaggy corner without risking a bootful I 
 had to get ashore and re-enter the shallows above the 
 alder roots. The trees behind made it impossible to cast 
 to the next trout available without getting too near him, 
 and I sent him to cover and disturbed one side of another 
 twenty yards of brook. The other side, however, con- 
 tained a run, from which I extracted another eleven-inch 
 trout, which went back. 
 
 I had now reached a spot where the character of the 
 stream was somewhat changed. It was somewhat deeper, 
 and the bottom was still silver sand and gold gravel, 
 
230 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 but it was so overgrown with bunches of serried flags that, 
 in order to cast over them to the little runs between the 
 flag masses, it was necessary for me to regain the bank, 
 here fortunately open enough for the purpose though 
 packed with wild herbage and in places showing a couple 
 of yards of black mud left by the stream between the 
 water and sound footing. There was hazel and alder 
 behind, near enough to keep one guessing, and it was 
 easy to be hung up, and what with the overgrowth on the 
 banks and the overgrowth in the water one began to 
 wonder how it was possible either to hook a trout or to 
 land him if one did so. For the sake of the bigger hook, 
 I changed my Spinner for the discarded No. I Red Sedge 
 with hare's-ear body, and looked about me. Presently I 
 became aware of a trout lying under the opposite bank 
 beneath a hazel bough and against a small pile of brambles, 
 with three broad bands of well-grown flags between him 
 and the black mud and dead brown flags at my feet. I 
 do not pretend to have conceived a plan for extracting 
 that trout if I hooked him, but he looked so nice a fish 
 for the stream that I could not leave him untried, and, 
 after several essays and several times pulling my hook 
 through the leaf of a flag, I dropped my fly on his tail. He 
 turned and took it at once, and I kept his head down-stream 
 away from the brambles till a chance came a few yards 
 down of steering him out of the farthest run into the next. 
 Up this he bolted, and with a shortened line I pulled him 
 through a weak place in the next regiment of flags, and 
 with a little more manoeuvring got him through the next, 
 when I found myself able to lift his chin on to the edge 
 of the black mud and to bring him slithering on to it. 
 Then the hook came away just in reach of the rim of my 
 long-handled landing-net, but too far away for me to get 
 it under him. But as I touched him with it he kicked and 
 fell upon the mesh, and presently was laid alongside his 
 
EPISODICAL 231 
 
 predecessor in the bag, a better fish than my first by a 
 couple of ounces. 
 
 A fly or two could now be seen in the air, and Whirling 
 Blue dun was clearly the order of the day. So I changed 
 once more, oiled my fly, and looked out for another victim. 
 I found my next fish a few yards down-stream of the last, 
 in a run under the opposite bank, with still three thick 
 strings of flag between me and the bed of crow's-foot from 
 the shelter of which he seemed to come up. I say seemed, 
 because, though I could see the tail of the crow's-foot bed 
 through a gap in the screen of rushes, I could only hear 
 when he rose, and see the lower end of the ring as it spread 
 down-stream. I dropped the fly over the screen, however, 
 struck at the sound of the rise, and got my fish down- 
 stream and through the gap on the surprise. Once this 
 was done the main part of the difficulty was over. I soon 
 worked him through the rest, and to a place on the bank 
 where there was no mud to prevent my netting him out. 
 He was just over the twelve inches. Thoroughly drying 
 my fly with a sheet of amadou and re-oiling it, I moved 
 up a few yards, not ill-pleased with myself, to find another 
 quarry. I came to an open pool with two or three fish 
 in it, one of them, looking a safe pound, lying close against 
 a deep bed of flags which fringed the opposite side, and 
 then parted to let half the stream run one side and half 
 the other. I first tried a brace of fish in the middle, which 
 seemed in a feeding humour, but though both came and 
 looked at my fly, neither would have it. So I made proffer 
 to the third. He backed slowly before it till he was 
 sheltered by the bed of flags which divided the stream. 
 Here he seemed inaccessible, and I tried the other two 
 again, but in vain. Then looking up a sort of foot- wide 
 little lane which ran slantingly across the phalanx of flags 
 I thought I saw the head and eye of the trout that had 
 dropped down. I have cannoned off the red and pocketed 
 
232 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 all three balls at billiards, but I never made a more perfect 
 fluke than the cast which fell exactly along the line of 
 the lane, and dropped my Whirling Blue pat on the nose 
 of the trout. He took it unsuspectingly, bolted straight 
 into the open pool, and was presently added to the bag, 
 increasing the weight upon my shoulders by a pound. 
 
 A brace of unsizable fish followed and were returned, 
 and then I came to another open pool. I found myself 
 standing over it under a tree, having approached un- 
 warily, and eying a trout which hung poised in the centre, 
 eying me in turn as if ready to bolt the moment I 
 raised my hand. I did not raise my hand. I kept my 
 eye steadily on the eye of the trout and dropped my 
 Whirling Blue, which I had forgotten to dry and re-oil, 
 with a wrist flick delivered from trouser-pocket level, so 
 that it lit in front of him, rather on the far side from me. 
 What possessed him to take it I cannot conceive, but. take 
 it he did, and was in due course knocked on the head. 
 
 Then there was a change in the humour of the fish, and, 
 I think, in the level of the water — bless the millers ! Though 
 the fish lay out in position to feed, they let the fly, natural 
 as well as artificial, go over them unheeded. Still, it 
 might have been worse. I had had out five brace and 
 killed two and a half brace. 
 
 One o'clock ! ! 
 
 Lunch ! 
 
 FOUR. 
 
 In a certain chalk stream which has not been stocked 
 for many years, but breeds its own trout, the two-pounder 
 was, before the war, a comparative rarity. On the length 
 which it has been my privilege to fish for a number of 
 years the annual tale of two-pounders could be counted 
 on the fingers, generally on those of one hand; 1915 
 was an exceptionally good year in this respect, or I 
 
EPISODICAL 233 
 
 should be inclined to think I had monopolized more than 
 my due proportion during August and September. 
 
 The first occasion was a Saturday early in August. 
 The rise began tentatively about 10.15 a.m., soon after 
 my arrival on the water. The first fish seen to rise was 
 cruising for position, and whether he was scared or not 
 he was soon lost; but, while he was being cast to, a 
 bumping big trout flung himself out of the water about 
 one hundred and fifty yards higher upstream, and fell 
 back with a resounding splash. " I wish I had that 
 chap on my fly," was in my mind. No other fish putting 
 up in the interval, the one hundred and fifty yards were 
 slowly passed by, and about eleven o'clock the place 
 where the big fish had broken water was reached. There 
 he stood poised in midstream about two feet down over 
 a deep hole or pocket, at a point where a certain narrowing 
 of the stream concentrated the current towards the middle. 
 He was not rising, nor was it apparent that he was feeding ; 
 but he looked willing to feed. Accordingly a wet Pale 
 Greenwell, and subsequently a wet Pale Watery dun, were 
 successively submitted to his attention, and were allowed 
 by him to pass without notice. Then a fair fish rose thirty 
 or forty yards farther up, and I moved on to him, and 
 was just netting him out when I became aware of a 
 rise twice repeated at the point where the big fish had 
 lain. A wide circuit into the meadow brought the nine- 
 footer behind the trout. He was taking with a head- 
 and-tail porpoise-roll sort of rise, and I diagnosed the 
 fly as spent spinner. I quickly changed my wet Pale 
 Watery for a small, floating Tup's Indispensable. The 
 trout continued to rise, not frequently, but steadily. As 
 the Tup lit a foot or so above him and a little to the left, 
 he took another fly with a head-and-tail rise, and then 
 reached for the Tup. . . . Two pounds two ounces. 
 
 30 
 
234 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 Next time I visited the water was for two days 
 at the beginning of September. Apart from their heat, 
 there was nothing worthy of recording about these two 
 days. On each occasion I had my couple of brace before 
 the evening. On each occasion the evening rise was in 
 two stages. First, there was a sudden wild outbreak of 
 the surface into a flutter of tiny little pale duns. They 
 were not Ccenis; the body was a pale greenish primrose, 
 and nothing in the fly-box would imitate them. A few — 
 a very few — fish began to rise at them, but these all fed 
 steadily. One in particular, rising at the head of a long 
 bank of weed which showed out of the water two-thirds 
 of the way across, impressed me as being a real good fish ; 
 but he was plied with Quill Marryat and No. I Whitchurch 
 on ooo and Pale Olive Tup in vain, and ultimately 
 went down, and I moved on to another fish. At this 
 time the heat was so oppressive that the perspiration 
 constantly clouded the eyeglass, and rendered it a gym- 
 nastic feat to keep it in position. Suddenly the rise 
 stopped, and for a moment it looked as if, with the cooling 
 of the temperature, all was over for the evening. Presently, 
 however, there were seen on the surface a few of the large 
 blue- winged olives which so often lead to priceless sport. 
 That made the big chap at the head of the weed-bed worth 
 thinking of. There sure enough he was rising, taking the 
 fly with the large, bold, distinctive swirl which spells 
 blue-winged olive to the initiated. In the fly-box was 
 a new effort at the representation of that insect. 
 
 Wing. — Coot secondary — rolled and reversed. 
 
 Body. — Greenish-yellow seal's fur, rather rough. 
 
 Tag. — Flat gold. 
 
 Hackle. — Blue dun dyed greenish-yellow olive. 
 
 Whisk.— Ditto. 
 
 Hook. — No. i. 
 
EPISODICAL 235 
 
 It lit exactly right first chuck, and in a moment the 
 nine-footer was a hoop, and the trout racing down-stream 
 on the far side of the big weed-bed. This suited me 
 well enough, and I, too, ran to keep the move on the fish, 
 and race him down below the weed-bed before he turned. 
 The manoeuvre almost succeeded, but suddenly the trout 
 became aware that he was missing chances, and plunged 
 into the weed-bed. Held lightly, however, with the hand 
 high, he soon beat himself free of the weeds, and before 
 he could bury himself again he was turned and rushed 
 down-stream into a more open part, where presently the 
 battle ended. . . . Two poimds four ounces. 
 
 The rest of the evening yielded further sport, but it is 
 not worth recording. 
 
 During the afternoon of the following day, when nothing 
 was doing, two fish were observed under the far bank, 
 about thirty yards apart. The water was fairly open, 
 weeds never growing very strongly in that bend. The 
 lower fish looked a big one until the upper one was seen. 
 The latter looked three and a half pounds, and the former 
 was guessed at two and a half pounds. He flooped the 
 Whitchurch dun offered him. Both fish were noted for 
 reference, and the place from which to approach them 
 was carefully marked. 
 
 The evening was distinguished by just such a rise of tiny 
 pale duns as was that of the previous day. Again there 
 was a somewhat sudden fall in temperature, and again 
 the blue-winged olive rise began. The new pattern, 
 however, was contemptuously rejected, so the old stand-by, 
 a big Orange Quill, was knotted on. In quick succession 
 a one-and-three-quarter pound trout and a grayling of 
 one pound fifteen ounces were basketed, and then the big 
 fish round the bend were remembered. Either of them 
 was worth a new fly, and a new one was knotted on 
 
236 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 accordingly. There they were both of them moving to 
 blue-winged olive, with curiously enough not another 
 fish rising in the length. The question of tactics arose, 
 which to tackle first ? Greed won the day. Both would 
 be a triumph. The lower one first. Out went the fly, 
 lighting just above him as he took a blue- winged olive. 
 There was a moment's suspense, and then a jar as the hook 
 went into his jaw. At once it felt as if the opposite bank 
 had been hooked, and was steadily, slowly, and irresistibly 
 forging upstream. Then, twenty, thirty yards it went, 
 and then with a big torpedo wave departed the last chance 
 of the three-and-a-half pound trout. Still, the length was 
 not quite fruitless. . . . Two pounds seven ounces. 
 
 The next visit was on September 20. A leash of fair 
 trout and a brace of grayling rewarded the day's toil. 
 In the course of it a good trout was observed standing under 
 a tussock just below a certain bend where many a big 
 fish has met its fate. So famous is it that habitues know 
 it as No. 1 Tussock. The trout, however, was not having 
 anything, thank you. There was no evening rise that 
 night, but from a couple of hundred yards below it seemed 
 as if a sizable swirl occurred once by the No. 1 Tussock. 
 The large Orange Quill was on in waiting for the blue- winged 
 olive rise which never came. No. 1 Tussock was on the 
 way home to the inn. The Orange Quill fell just 
 above it, where the current cuddles round from the 
 bend. Yes, there had been a swirl. . . . Two pounds 
 two ounces. 
 
 And so farewell to the river for the season. 
 
 Curiously enough, each of these two-pounders was 
 fished to once previously during the day, and each 
 succumbed to the first chuck on the second occasion. 
 Lastly, it was the first time I ever took in that water a 
 two-pounder on each of four successive days' fishing, 
 
EPISODICAL 237 
 
 though I once had three two-pounders in one day, and 
 not another fin, and once four two-pounders in one 
 evening. 
 
 NINE TO ONE. 
 
 The mill was a powerful one, or it would not have needed 
 a quarter of a mile of head, generally deep, and nowhere 
 less than five-and-twenty yards across, to do its day's 
 work. That there were big trout in the head I knew. 
 I saw one a few days ago which was not an ounce under 
 five pounds, and for some hours on each succeeding day 
 I haunted the head in the hope of finding him again, 
 not only in position, but in a taking mood. Once I 
 saw a fish rise twice in a little bay above a big tussock, 
 which, when one got near enough to cast to him, hid 
 the rise entirely. Nevertheless, with a good heart I 
 delivered a small floating March Brown to the spot 
 where I imagined the trout to be, struck at the sound 
 of the immediately succeeding rise, felt a horrid jar as 
 if I had hit a snag, and then the still horrider sense of 
 slackness that tells one that one has failed to fasten. The 
 trout departed with a great wave, but he was not my five- 
 pounder. That, however, was the only fish I saw move 
 during the five days which followed my glimpse of Leviathan. 
 There were other fish there I know, because on occasion 
 I saw the wave which a trout departing leaves behind him 
 (as the trouty equivalent for " footsteps on the sands of 
 time"), though a most careful inspection both of surface 
 and bottom had failed to reveal his presence alongside the 
 sludgy, tussock-ridden bank. The opposite bank, besides 
 being fringed with trees, often close together, and being 
 elsewhere clad with brambles and exaggerated specimens 
 of nettle, dock, willow-herb, and what had once been 
 meadowsweet, was anything from five feet to eight feet 
 above the water. It did not therefore offer an ideal vantage 
 
238 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 ground for attacking the pool. Yet it was right under this 
 far bank that on the sixth day I saw my only riser besides 
 the one aforementioned. He was close in under the bank, 
 almost beneath a large and bushy elm — the kind that wears 
 a sort of hangmen's fringe — and under a horrid canopy of 
 frog-bit, deceased meadowsweet, nettle, and other herbage 
 devised for the confusion of anglers, the profit of tackle- 
 dealers, and the despair of over-worked recording angels. 
 
 The only redeeming features of the situation were the 
 direction of the wind (which was not unfavourable), and 
 the fact that the trout lay just where the mill-head was at 
 its narrowest. I calculated that with luck I might cover 
 the fish once in thirty or forty casts, and I stuck to him 
 for the best part of an hour, during which he rose perhaps 
 twenty times. If I covered him during that time it was not 
 with a fly he wanted. I must have caught up in sedges and 
 other herbage behind fully as many times as he rose, and 
 my damaged wrist waxed tired. I waded in at the top of 
 the pool, and sought the high strip in the middle, to see 
 if I could get down to and opposite the fish, but half-way 
 down I began to ship water over the tops of my wading 
 stockings, and retreated to terra firma. But I was not 
 done yet. It was half a mile round by the mill to the 
 opposite side, and then the fish was quite inaccessible, 
 but still I went. It was just on noon when I arrived at 
 the spot and began to prospect. The fish was still there 
 and still rising — if anything, a trifle more freely than 
 before. What he was taking I could not see, but, going 
 down to the water behind the next tree below him, I 
 saw some black gnat, two little pale watery duns, a blue- 
 winged olive, and a spent red spinner go down, and a 
 sedge go scuttering along the water. The tree was about 
 twenty feet from the elm below which my trout lay, and 
 against it, waist high, swayed a very friendly and pre- 
 
EPISODICAL 239 
 
 hensile bramble-bush, covered with succulent black- 
 berries. It sufficed to hold me back some six or seven 
 feet from the edge, so that when my rod was held out at 
 right angles, some two or three feet only w r ould project 
 over the stream. Then the line would have to be delivered 
 over (1) bramble-bush, (2) a thick clump of willow-herb, 
 (3) a thick clump of meadowsweet, (4) a long and par- 
 ticularly offensive nettle-head; and it would have to avoid 
 a long, trailing bramble-sucker. But before I could begin 
 to think of casting there was the tree to consider. Its 
 branches hung low, and some clearance was indicated. 
 Five minutes' faithful work with a pocket-knife made just 
 a possible room for me to swing my Leonard horizontally, 
 and I calculated that I could get my line into the air under 
 the tree at my back without inevitably hanging up every 
 time in the tree in front, and could then draw it back by 
 switching my rod horizontally across the bushes, so that 
 once in a while, with luck, my line might all fall clear of the 
 objectionable herbage, and my fly even cover the trout. 
 
 Then I put on my mackintosh, hardened my heart, and 
 cuddled as deep as I could into the bramble-bush which 
 banked against my tree, and saw to my joy that I could 
 spot the rise of my fish just beneath the solitary nettle- 
 head. I had quite made up my mind that if a cast failed 
 it would be ten chances to one against my recovering my 
 fly. I began with a Pale Watery dun, and to my delight 
 managed to get my line on to the water just as I had cal- 
 culated. The fly, however, fell a foot short of the fish, and 
 though I let it drift down so as to clear most of the herbage, 
 and pulled it very gently through the rings, the meadow- 
 sweet got it, and kept it and the point of my cast. I put 
 on another, and this time I covered my fish nicely. But 
 he took no notice, and the fly, after being recovered once 
 successfully and represented in vain, followed its predeces- 
 
240 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 sor's example in yielding to the clinging affections of the 
 meadowsweet. Then I tried a Red Quill, and after he had 
 been rejected, I left him and more of my gut in one of the 
 trailing brambles. Followed a home-made hackled Red 
 spinner, tied with a priceless honey-dun cock's hackle, a 
 Whirling Blue dun, and two Orange Quills on No. I hooks. 
 There were two of these, because the first was hung up 
 before I got him over my trout. There were fully two yards 
 of gut left when the first Orange Quill left me, there was but 
 one yard when I was orphaned of the second. Then I 
 bethought me of the scuttering sedge, and I put on a 
 good big wholesome Red Sedge, with an orange silk body on 
 a No. 4 hook. All the time the trout had continued at 
 intervals to take some fly or other, whose nature was not 
 revealed to me, with a sullen, consequential " ploop," 
 occasionally displaying his back fin and the extreme tip of 
 his tail as he went down. All this time he had never been 
 scared. The Sedge went over him beautifully (I had no 
 nerves about my casting, having not the least hope or 
 expectation of getting my fish), there was a little hump 
 under the surface, and then the Sedge floated on undis- 
 turbed. So was the Recording Angel. Once I recovered the 
 fly, and again put it before my fish. No notice taken, but 
 when I tried to recover the Sedge again there was passive 
 resistance, and I lost not only the remaining yard of gut, 
 but the loop of my casting line. 
 
 I put a new cast into my damper to soak, emerged from 
 my bramble-bush, sat down, frayed out the end of my 
 casting line, waxed it, waxed a doubled length of silk, and 
 whipped a new loop in the end. Then I put on my freshly 
 damped cast, and as I glanced over the fly-box, looking 
 up by chance, I saw a willow fly on the elbow of my 
 mackintosh. Now I pride myself on my Willow Flies. I 
 tie a spent Willow Fly which has a most life-like way of 
 
EPISODICAL 241 
 
 lying dead with wings outspread on the water, and I had one 
 left. I grudged it to the bushes, but it was almost the end 
 of the season. So on it went. Four or five switches through 
 the air to get distance, and then the Willow Fly dropped 
 just a foot in front and to the outside of the spot where 
 I imagined my fish to be. Once again there was that 
 solemn consequential suck, once again the back fin and 
 the tail tip successively appeared and disappeared, and 
 then, scarcely believing in what had happened, I pulled 
 line and raised rod together (so as not to hit the tree above), 
 drawing the hook gently but firmly home. In a moment 
 my rod and line were drawn into the straight as the fish 
 tore madly up under his own bank, emptying the reel of 
 almost all its thirty-five yards of line in one streak. Then he 
 seemed to be seeking cover in a weed, and, forcing my way 
 through the bramble and other tangle, I crept up to and 
 close under the upper elm, and tried to pass round it to get 
 nearer my fish. Holding him lightly with the rod just 
 arched, I could feel him beating savagely in the weeds, and 
 presently, as he came away, I began winding him down 
 quickly with my rod well hooped, and butting him out of 
 reach of several likely-looking snags on the way down, 
 I got him at length opposite to me in deepish water, and 
 more than a little tired by his exertions. Keeping low, 
 and as much out of sight as possible, I dipped the net 
 through the herbage, and a moment later I was hoisting 
 my fish ashore. In landing him I nearly broke my rod- 
 point through the line catching in a bramble, but I saw 
 what was happening just in time. Though perfect in 
 colour, shape, and condition, deep and thick, he was not 
 a big fish — only two pounds four ounces. But I do not 
 recall many other trout the catching of which has been a 
 greater satisfaction to me than his. 
 One o'clock. 
 
 31 
 
242 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 A TRAVELLING COMPANION. 
 
 I had secured a window seat, back to engine, on the 
 sunny side of the two o'clock train for Winchester, had 
 extracted from my kit-bag my little travelling wallet 
 of fly-dressing materials, and had settled into my corner, 
 when I became aware that I was not to travel alone. A 
 passenger who had already come up from somewhere down 
 the line — Winchfield or Old Basing, or farther south — 
 was to go down again with me. It was a mid-July day, 
 and my companion was no less a personage than a dark 
 sherry spinner. He had placed himself obligingly on the 
 lower ledge of my window-pane, and had disabled himself 
 from flight by the loss of his setae. He therefore offered him- 
 self most conveniently as a model for imitation, and as 
 soon as the other companions of my journey were seated, 
 and the train was moving out of the station, I fixed a 
 Limerick hook of the correct length in my little hand- vice, 
 selected a little batch of ruddy-brown seal's fur dubbing, 
 matched it against the model in the sunlight, waxed a length 
 of hot orange tying silk, selected a rusty blue-dun cock's 
 hackle of appropriate size, and whipped it on to the hook, 
 broke off the waste end, whipped to the tail, tied in three 
 bright honey-dun whisks and a length of fine gold wire, 
 spun on a tapered length of the dubbing, wound it to the 
 shoulder, wound on the wire at nice intervals, secured it at 
 the shoulder, broke off the waste end, nipped my hackle- 
 point in the pliers, wound the hackle some six turns, wound 
 the tying silk through it, pushed back the hackle fibres, 
 and finished with a whip finish on the neck of the hook. 
 Twice the process was repeated before the train ran through 
 Farnborough, when the wallet was tucked away. 
 
 Seven o'clock saw me on the water ; but it was nearly two 
 hours later before the evening rise began. There were a 
 
EPISODICAL 243 
 
 few — a very few — blue-winged olives, and the trout were 
 obviously not taking them, and were equally obviously 
 sipping spinners. In the bend up to which by the time 
 the rise began I had sauntered there were three fish rising, 
 perhaps once a minute. The first was a very ruse and ex- 
 perienced fish, in a strategic position of great advantage for 
 observation (his observation), and he went down at the 
 second offer of the Indispensable. The second stood better, 
 and rose several times within an inch or two of the fly without 
 touching it ; but while I was changing to the pattern of the 
 afternoon's manufacture he took fright at something, 
 and bolted before I began to get out line again. Thus it 
 came about that the next fish I covered was No. 3. He 
 was moving a bit from side to side on the margin of a 
 slow eddy, but presently the fly almost dropped on his nose, 
 and he had it as it lit. At the tightening of my line he was 
 off with a swift violence rectangularly across-stream, 
 tearing through bunches and masses of weed, the line taut 
 as a bowstring, then up and back and across to my own 
 bank again, hooping the little rod and keeping me moving to 
 prevent a smash. For a long time nothing I could do would 
 turn him down, but at last I took a lucky chance and got 
 his head down-stream, and from that point I kept beating 
 him down, turning and checking every attempt to get up 
 again to his corner until I had got him down a hundred 
 and fifty yards or so below the point where I hooked him. 
 Then he made a violent effort to turn upstream, and, that 
 defeated, rushed across to the far side. All this time I had 
 never seen a glimpse of him, and I was fated never to do so, 
 for at the effort to start him down again he gave a plunge 
 of startling violence, and the hook came away. Judging 
 only by the force of his play, he was easily the biggest fish 
 I ever hooked on that water, and I had had trout there 
 up to and a little over three pounds. 
 
244 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 On the way back to the corner where I hooked him I 
 observed a rise of a big grayling, and, more in wantonness 
 than from any desire to catch him, I put the fly over him. 
 He came up at once, and I had him plunging and twisting 
 at the end of my line, and led him down-stream plainly 
 visible — a heavy grayling, for that water, of fully two 
 pounds — and then, just as I began to get ready the net, the 
 hook came away again. 
 
 I should have looked at my hook when I lost the big 
 trout. When I did so now my two losses were explained. 
 The hook was of soft metal and had pulled out, not 
 straight, but enough to render my hold most insecure. 
 
 Meanwhile the dusk had deepened apace. The even- 
 ing rise wore out rapidly, and the only two fish I found 
 rising had to be chucked to from a bank where I had the 
 red glow of expiring sunset behind me, and neither 
 materialized. Bitterly disappointed, I made my way 
 slowly up to the hut where I was to meet my friend, and 
 I did not find a riser till just below the point of meeting. 
 The trout placed himself nicely enough as I came up, 
 and I offered him the new fly three or four times. He took 
 it presently, and was gone with a slash. This time I looked 
 at the hook and found it all right. 
 
 My friend was not at the hut, and so I strolled a yard 
 or two above it to see if a certain persistent riser, even more 
 ruse and experienced than the first I had attacked, would 
 give me a final chance. Yes, he was still up, and the first 
 cast landed the fly absolutely right. I tightened, felt his 
 rush, and then again the sickening slackness. Sadly I began 
 to wind in, when, to my astonishment and delight, I found 
 he was on and had merely run down. Directly the line 
 tightened he was off upstream, and led me battling for a 
 hundred yards along the bank before I could turn him. 
 To say sooth I was not anxious to do so too soon, for below 
 
EPISODICAL 245 
 
 me was a low boat-shed, over which it was just possible, 
 with luck, to pass rod and line, but it involved risks which 
 rendered it most undesirable to do so. So I wanted 
 to kill him above the shed. Gradually I beat him down, 
 and several times I brought him to the side. He did not 
 seem a very big fish, but he felt far too strong for any 
 liberties to be taken; so strong, indeed, that I wondered if 
 he were not foul-hooked. So I made up my mind I must 
 bring him below the boathouse. Therefore, offering him the 
 net when just above the shed, I sent him off at a tangent 
 across the stream, and throwing my body forward on to 
 the roof, and stretching out my arm to its fullest capacity 
 and giving line freely, I brought the rod and line over the 
 dangerous corner ; then, recovering my footing and holding 
 the rod high, I ran down below, winding in line rapidly, and 
 was once more on terms with my fish. He was, however, 
 a long way from being beaten. My friend came up and 
 relieved me of the long-handled landing-net, and made 
 several vain efforts to fetch him out. The fish, however, was 
 full of fight, and had he not attempted a rush into a raft 
 of floating weed by the margin he might have got away. 
 But as I made my effort to get his chin on to the weed the 
 net went under him, and he was out on the bank choking 
 and gasping and still full of fight and fury. The hold of 
 the hook, however, was of the frailest, and another 
 minute might have seen his escape. He was hooked 
 all right, in the roof of the mouth. My friend guessed 
 him at one pound ten ounces, and he had a brace of 
 one pound twelve ounces and one pound fifteen ounces 
 to go by. The keeper's balance, however, said two 
 pounds four ounces; and I am sure he wasn't a patch on 
 the first fish I lost on the simulacrum of my travelling 
 companion. 
 
246 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 THE FOLLOWING DAY. 
 
 The hour at which the fast afternoon train lands one in 
 the Cathedral City is not a satisfactory one, for one reaches 
 the water to find the two slackest hours of the chalk-stream 
 angler's day in progress. In the days before the Summer 
 Time Act I should have had tea and gone out for the evening, 
 relying on a good supper when I came in. Now I go out for 
 an hour's look round, in which I do not count on doing 
 much — and am seldom disappointed — and come back for 
 a solid meal before starting out for the evening rise. 
 July 28 proved no exception. I found some four trout 
 moving, raised two of them, and failed to hook either, and 
 put down all four. One of them, however, had an effect on 
 the evening's movements, for he was that aggravating fish 
 which rises — rose, rather — a short cast above the dead 
 hedge on the left bank. I was specially annoyed at missing 
 him, for I had often fished to him and had never got a rise 
 out of him, and I never knew anyone who claimed to have 
 done so. The other fish was near the surface on a bank of 
 weed, just above a point where a spike of celery emerging 
 from the surface divided the current. He was only 
 accessible from the right bank, so when I came out for the 
 evening I strolled up to the appropriate distance below him 
 and knotted on a wet Greenwell double on No. 00 hooks 
 tied on gut, and waited to make sure of my fish before 
 casting. As I did so I became aware of a movement of 
 a fishy character — it was not a rise, nor was it tailing — 
 under my own bank, in some shallow water, at a point 
 where the stream bent rather sharply from south-east to 
 south. The light prevented me from seeing if a fish 
 were there, but I sent my Greenwell double to explore. 
 The first cast was short, but the second was there or there- 
 abouts. There was a little hump under water, which only 
 
EPISODICAL 247 
 
 broke the surface when I tightened. The kicking pounder 
 was soon ashore, but incidentally he put down the fish I 
 had come for, and so, having performed the obsequies and 
 wiped my hands, I turned down-stream again, crossed at 
 the mill, and walked up the other side, wading through a 
 stretch of marshy meadow, alive with floating water-snail, 
 to the dead hedge, determined there to await the meal- 
 time of the aggravator aforesaid before beginning opera- 
 tions. It was striking eight as I arrived, and I fully 
 expected to have to wait an hour before the serious business 
 of the evening began. But I had scarcely arrived, and had 
 noted a stream of miscellaneous fare coming down on the 
 surface — a small, dark sedge, some spinners of two or 
 three varieties, black gnats, a winged black ant, a gnat 
 with a green body, a couple of July duns, a pale watery 
 dun or two, and one blue-winged olive — when a soft suck 
 a yard above the projecting frond of vegetation where 
 that fish was usually to be found roused me to conscious- 
 ness that I need not sit down. A moment's consideration 
 led me to decide that I would not cast from the bank. 
 If I went far enough from the dead hedge to avoid being 
 hung up in it, I should be so near the fish as certainly 
 to be seen by him. No, the bottom was sound where the 
 village boys had waded, and I had on waders which came 
 well up the leg. So I stepped cautiously into the water, 
 let out line down-stream, incidentally soaking my 
 Greenwell Glory, and delivered my first and only cast to 
 that fish. It was not a good cast, but it was probably 
 better than a more perfect one for its purpose. The fly 
 lit nearly a yard to the left of the fish, and very little above 
 him; but immediately that slight surface indication which 
 betrays the turn of a trout under water occurred, and softly 
 but firmly I pulled home the wires. Away went the 
 trout with a burst, and I let him run while I got out on to 
 
248 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 the bank. I could feel the gut sawing through beds of weeds, 
 then up into the air sprang a fish, which, if not so big as 
 I thought him, was still satisfactorily solid. Coming 
 down, he was off down-stream, and nearly emptied my reel 
 before I caught him up and got below him — trespassing, by 
 the way, in so doing, for the field below the dead hedge 
 was not in my leave. Then, after a couple more excursions 
 into the air, the trout was off upstream again, and this 
 time he absolutely emptied my reel, and would infallibly 
 have smashed me had he not brought up against a heavy bed 
 of driftweed on the far side. Baffled in trying to bury him- 
 self in this, he turned after the third attempt, and swimming 
 deep and fast came towards me under several heavy masses 
 of weed. I ran down-stream to straighten and disentangle 
 the line, and got it out and wound in rapidly. But by this 
 time the trout was plunging through vegetation under 
 my own bank, and got my line under a pile of driftweed 
 which had caught on that vegetation. I began to fear he 
 was lost, but, putting down my rod so that the line would 
 run easily, I reached the drift weed with my long-handled 
 net and shovelled it off in six or seven instalments. Re- 
 suming my rod, I was pleased to find the trout was still 
 on. Upstream he went, ploughing through more water 
 growth, but I was over him with a tight line and beginning 
 at length to lift him. Presently I had a shot at him with 
 the net. That was more than he could stand, and he was 
 off into open water again, and for a long time resisted my 
 persuasions. But at length he rolled over, and I guided 
 him into the net at the very spot at which I had stood to 
 cast to him. He was not a long fish, but quite a shapely 
 one, and he turned the scale at exactly two pounds. 
 
 The fight had been an exciting one, but I rather grudged 
 the time expended when I saw two more fish rising close 
 together some forty or fifty yards up, and a third about 
 
EPISODICAL 249 
 
 the same distance beyond. I selected the banker, on a 
 comparison of the rises, as the better of the two fish which 
 rose alongside of each other, and I sent my little Greenwell 
 on its errand to him. The cast was a trifle short, but the 
 fish turned and came for it with a boil which indicated a 
 very big fish indeed. But either he missed or I did — for I 
 did not feel him. And as neither he nor the other fish 
 showed any symptom of rising again, I moved on in search 
 of the third, whose ring I had noted. He too, however, had 
 stopped, and I had not placed him accurately enough to 
 make a cast or two on speculation worth while. 
 
 At the bend immediately above there are two or three 
 perennial feeders — very good fish, but extremely wary 
 and gut shy. A friend coming up on the right bank en- 
 deavoured to lure me to spend my time on them ; but, with 
 my mind's eye on an upper stretch, I was not for wasting 
 time on them, and I moved on. 
 
 The next stretch, however, proved very disappointing. 
 Not one of these big fish which I had counted on to give 
 me a chance was at home; and in the next three or four 
 hundred yards the only rises I saw were made by two 
 grayling. I felt sure from the size and nature of the rings 
 they made that they were taking sherry spinner, and I took 
 off the Green well's Glory and knotted on a home-made 
 Sherry Spinner with a rusty dun hackle too priceless to be 
 wasted on grayling. Each of the two, however, took it at 
 the first offer, and after an obstinate resistance was netted 
 out — one pound ten ounces and one pound eight ounces 
 respectively. It was not nine o'clock, and I had reached 
 a bend where, on a gravelly shallow, the fish, both trout and 
 grayling, seem to be rising if they are rising anywhere. But 
 not a dimple broke the surface. The blue- winged olives 
 which were coming down were too few to bring on the fish. 
 Moreover, the moon was up and bright and behind my 
 
 32 
 
250 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 hand. I looked up the next reach, and waited, for it is 
 usually a productive one. Presently a fish made a ring 
 and then another near the bottom of the stretch, but he 
 would not stand to be cast to with the moon behind me, and 
 he stopped at the first cast. Then a little later a second 
 trout behaved in the same way, and I made up my mind 
 to get round the next bend, where the moon would throw 
 the shadow on my rod across-stream instead of up, and 
 to finish out my evening there. But as I made my way 
 up I saw a fish out in the stream dropping foot by foot 
 and feeding freely. I dropped as low as I could and cast 
 to him. It had to be a very short line, as he was almost 
 on me; but he took the Spinner at the very first offer, and 
 after violent splashing play on the surface was netted out 
 some forty or fifty yards down-stream — one pound thirteen 
 ounces. 
 
 It may seem strange to change one's fly immediately 
 after killing a fish with it, but it was growing dusk, and my 
 sight is not very good, and I wanted to tie on my Orange 
 Quill for the end of the rise before it grew too dark. So I 
 did so, and made my way round the bend to the very best 
 holding stretch in the fishery. 
 
 At the lower end of that stretch the current sets under the 
 far bank, so I did not waste much time on that part, but 
 settled myself to wait at the point where the set of the cur- 
 rent was under my own bank and the light right upstream, 
 so that I could see every movement on my own side. 
 I was bitterly disappointed, however, to see no sign of a rise. 
 It was 9.30, and it might be that all was over.- Presently 
 a big rise under the right bank showed the distinctive 
 features of a fish taking blue-winged olive. But I was 
 not casting to him, for another rod was on that bank. 
 Then there was another rise a little farther up — again 
 under the far bank — and still none under mine. I looked 
 
EPISODICAL 251 
 
 right upstream, and near the top of my cherished stretch 
 I saw a ring of the proper kind, and then another. But 
 still I hesitated. I did not want to walk down good 
 holding water. But still there was nothing rising near me. 
 So very slowly and unwillingly I moved on — almost to 
 within casting distance of the trout — when, close tucked 
 up against the bank, a little below him, I saw three rings 
 in quick succession, and then two more. I dropped my line 
 across the herbage, guessing the distance to a fraction, for 
 the next ring, almost simultaneous with the fall of my cast, 
 absorbed my Orange Quill. There was no end of a rumpus, 
 and a stubborn battle ended over a hundred yards down- 
 stream with the transfer to my bag of a beautiful thick-set, 
 small-headed trout. 
 
 Feeling decidedly better, I went on to see if the fish 
 above was still feeding. He was. Again the fly lit exactly 
 right at the first cast, again the little nine-footer humped 
 as I pulled home into something that felt like a live snag, 
 and again some way down-stream the net performed its 
 office. 
 
 It was still short of ten o'clock, and I had not covered 
 the entire stretch. So, having washed the slime from my 
 fly, I sped back, drying it the while in amadou. Sure 
 enough, close under the bank another fish was rising at 
 short intervals at inches only from the bank. It was, 
 in that owl's light, a chance whether a second cast would 
 be possible if the first failed, for a hang up seemed a cer- 
 tainty. But again the beautiful little rod did its work 
 perfectly. The fly lit three inches above the last ring but 
 one, and in a moment was gone in the last. 
 
 The fish was quite soundly hooked (in the tongue as it 
 proved), and he came in, compared with the others, some- 
 what speedily; but then each of them had put up a very 
 specially big battle. He made the third of a glorious leash 
 
252 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 from that stretch — two pounds four ounces, two pounds 
 one ounce, and two pounds three ounces. 
 
 He was also the last fish of the evening; for though I 
 waited till after the stroke of ten, not another dimple, not 
 a sound of a suck rewarded my patience. 
 
 So I went back to the bottom of the bend, where Keeper 
 Humfry waited in the boat to ferry me over to the other 
 side, to the fishing-hut, to a much-needed drink, and the 
 short road home. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 I wanted the short road, for the strap was quite uncom- 
 fortably tight across my chest, with within an ounce of 
 fourteen and a half pounds of fish to tighten it. 
 
 ***** 
 It was a good evening — four brace, and every fish on 
 the first cast. I have not been able to make out why I 
 had a bad night after it. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Oh, ah, yes ! about the following day ! On further 
 consideration I draw a veil over the following day. I 
 leave it — appropriately — blank. 
 
 MY STICKING-PLASTER TROUT. 
 
 What great events from little causes spring ! If the 
 reel-seat of a May-fly rod of mine had fitted the reel which 
 was bought to go with it this story would have had a 
 different ending, and I should not have had that in my 
 pocket at the critical moment which was destined to 
 convert disaster into — but I am beginning the story at the 
 wrong end ! 
 
 I had killed quite a nice trout — something better than 
 two pounds — that July evening. I had spotted another, 
 and, I thought, a better, feeding under the far bank, and 
 
EPISODICAL 253 
 
 put him down. I had come to a place where the sedges 
 and flowering reeds grew so high and dense that it was 
 useless to attempt further fishing there. So, though 9.30 
 had struck, and the blue-winged olive rise had begun to 
 slacken ominously, I pushed through a coppice, across a 
 clearing, and on through a wire fence to the road leading 
 to the bridge which spanned the river, and was hastening 
 down the other side when I noticed that the top of my rod 
 had an ominous kink in it. I did not think it could be due to 
 the two-pounder, and I put it down to some strain incurred 
 in the coppice or in getting through the wire fence; but 
 I was not prepared to feel the top snap in my fingers as 
 I sought to straighten it. I climbed disconsolately down 
 the embankment, and was about to make my way home, 
 when a tinkle from something in my pocket gave me an 
 idea. It was a tin box of Seabury's adhesive tape — a 
 form of diachylon plaster — which I had bought to strap 
 down that ill-fitting reel to the handle of that May-fly rod. 
 That was quite an idea. I laid the two broken ends along- 
 side for a distance of two and a half or three inches, and 
 laid on spirally a strip of the tape, and, to my delight, 
 found it made a firm, if rather ungainly, job of it. Instead, 
 therefore, of striking across the meadows I followed the 
 river down to the point where I had put down the fish 
 from the other side — incidentally putting down on the way 
 a fish of two pounds five ounces, which I got on the fol- 
 lowing day — and made a little detour into the meadows, 
 got well below the place, and presently had the satis- 
 faction of finding my fish up again and feeding with quiet 
 resolution. The Orange Quill was still on my cast, the 
 line ran clear despite the sticking-plaster, and the little 
 nine-foot rod really worked wonderfully well, considering 
 its handicap. Anyhow, the fly lit in front of the fish 
 without any splash, and was accepted without a trace of 
 
254 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 suspicion. The hook went home, and still the splice held. 
 The fish tore off finely; it bent the rod into a hoop, but 
 still the splice held, and presently it struck me that it 
 was not the top, but the middle joint that was doing 
 the work. The battle became more and more strenuous 
 as its climax approached. Again and again the trout 
 sheered off desperately into deep water as it neared the 
 net. It lashed the surface in a series of frantic struggles, 
 it made long rushes with its back fin out of the water, 
 but at last the net received it, and I laid its lovely length 
 (and depth and width) on the turf. In a season in which 
 the fish had been from May i on in exceptionally fine 
 condition, this was the stoutest, cleanest, best-built trout 
 I had ever had out of Itchen, and the heaviest — three 
 pounds two ounces — and I got him out with a nine-foot 
 rod with the fine end of the top mended, in the dusk, with 
 sticking-plaster. 
 
X 
 
 WHAT WE HAVE TO PUT UP WITH AT THE CLUB 
 
 Doggerel from the Club Journal. 
 This is mine: 
 
 LITTLE BROWN WINK 
 
 I. 
 
 Oh, thrilling the rise at the lure that is dry, 
 When the slow trout comes up to the slaughter, 
 
 Yet rather would I 
 
 Have the turn at my fly, 
 The cunning brown wink under water. 
 
 The cute little wink under water ! 
 Mysterious wink under water ! 
 
 Delightful to ply 
 
 The subaqueous fly, 
 And watch for the wink under water. 
 
 II. 
 
 Let the Purist rejoice in the fly that he dries, 
 And look down on my practice with hauteur, 
 
 But for me the surprise 
 
 Of the flash of the rise, 
 The rosy -brown wink under water. 
 
 The dear little wink under water, 
 The yellow-brown wink under water, 
 
 The subtle delight 
 
 Of the line that goes tight, 
 At the shy little wink under water. 
 
 III. 
 
 Oh, give me the day when the fresh from the wold 
 Comes down with rich colour of porter, 
 
 And tinges with gold 
 
 That is flashing and bold 
 That yellow-green wink under water. 
 
 ?55 
 
256 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 That orange-brown wink under water, 
 That ruddy gold wink under water, 
 
 Oh, the glorious thrill 
 
 That the bosom will fill, 
 At that rollicking wink under water. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Or a day on some smooth-flowing stream from the chalk, 
 When ^olus no ruffle hath wrought her, 
 
 The keen subtle stalk 
 
 And the reel's sudden talk, 
 At the rusty-brown wink under water. 
 
 The heavy brown wink under water, 
 The fatuous wink under water, 
 
 When the bumping big trout 
 
 That has got to come out 
 Gives his solemn brown wink under water. 
 
 V. 
 
 I care for no trout that comes up with a splash 
 To capture the fly that I've brought her; 
 
 Let the trout that will dash 
 
 At my fly with a flash, 
 But tip me the wink under water. 
 
 The gleaming brown wink under water, 
 The golden-brown wink under water, 
 
 When I think I descry 
 
 The quick turn at my fly, 
 The fleeting brown wink under water. 
 
 VI. 
 
 When trouting is over, and autumn is here, 
 The days growing shorter and shorter, 
 
 The grayling will steer 
 
 For my fly with a mere 
 Little hint of a wink under water. 
 
 A silvery wink under water, 
 A soft little wink under water, 
 
 But she has it all right, 
 
 For the line has gone tight, 
 At that wee little wink under water. 
 
 VII. 
 So plunging and rolling I lead her ashore 
 And as to the bank I escort her, 
 
 She repenteth her sore, 
 
 That she'll never no more 
 Give that silver-brown wink under water. 
 
 That pinky-dun wink under water, 
 That shade of a wink under water, 
 
 That raises a doubt, 
 
 Is it grayling or trout 
 Gave that misty brown wink under water ? 
 
WHAT WE HAVE TO PUT UP WITH AT THE CLUB 257 
 
 VIII. 
 
 So here's to the fish that is crafty and shy, 
 With the lore that Dame Nature has taught her, 
 
 Yet we'll lure her to die, 
 
 As she captures our fly 
 With that giddy brown wink under water. 
 
 And here's to the wink under water, 
 The wicked brown wink under water, 
 
 And here's to the wise 
 
 That decline to despise 
 Any kind of a wink under water. 
 
 This is what I have to put up with : 
 
 DINGY BROWN WINK 
 
 A SEQUEL 
 
 Puristes loquitur: 
 
 But suppose I am out on a day that is rough, 
 When the wind blows a regular snorter, 
 
 It's the (tommi)est rot 
 
 To suppose I can spot 
 That I'm getting a wink under water. 
 
 Your dingy brown wink under water — 
 Ineffable wink under water; 
 
 I'd like you to tell 
 
 How the (qualified) hell 
 I'm to know I've a wink under water. 
 
 Respondit Subaquaticus : 
 
 It would seem that the practice of fishing the rise 
 Makes the temper grow shorter and shorter; 
 I can only advise 
 You make use of your eyes 
 And watch for the wink under water. 
 
 The glimpse of a wink under water, 
 The hint of a wink under water ; 
 
 Any hint is enough 
 
 On a day that is rough 
 To strike at a wink under water. 
 
 I cannot explain just what method is mine, 
 But Experience, when you have bought her, 
 
 Will tighten your line 
 
 At a hint of a sign 
 Of a ghost of a wink under water. 
 
 The pallidest wink under water, 
 The wraith of a wink under water, 
 
 And pull in your fly 
 
 Ere you've time to descry 
 If you've really a wink under water. 
 
 33 
 
2s8 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 
 
 But if, after all, your experiments fail, 
 Then get some ecstatic supporter, 
 Get from under the gale 
 To your fireside and rail 
 At the mythical wink under water. 
 
 The spurious wink under water, 
 Hypothetical wink under water, 
 
 And toast with full glasses 
 
 Confusion to asses 
 That prate of the wink under water. 
 
 Refert puristes : 
 
 Get along with your rabid and insolent guff, 
 You silly and giddy cavorter, 
 
 I've had more than enough 
 
 Of your drivelling stuff 
 And your idiot wink under water. 
 
 For there isn't a wink under water, 
 
 There was never a wink under water, 
 
 And I firmly believe 
 
 With intent to deceive 
 
 You invented the wink under water. 
 
 Cantant omnes : 
 
 It is rude, though your feelings it seems to relieve, 
 To dub any member " distorter," 
 
 You can hardly conceive 
 
 All the tales we believe 
 With the aid of a wink over water — 
 
 An innocent wink over water, 
 A wink over qualified water, 
 
 Ironical wink 
 
 Over comforting drink, 
 A wink over whisky-and-water. 
 
 So why not a wink under water, 
 An adjective wink under water, 
 
 A merry brown, very brown, 
 
 Sherry brown, cherry brown, 
 
 Honey dun, sunny dun, 
 
 Frisky brown, whisky brown 
 
 Might have been olive green, 
 
 Yellow gold, mellow gold, 
 
 Very gold, marigold, 
 
 Numerous, humorous, 
 
 Glimmering, shimmering, 
 
 Nickering, flickering, 
 
 Rollicking, frolicking, 
 
 Kaleidoscopical, topical, tropical. 
 
WHAT WE HAVE TO PUT UP WITH AT THE CLUB 259 
 
 Finical, cynical, blithering, dithering, 
 
 Anything else that is equally withering, 
 
 Spurious, curious, furious, impurious, 
 
 Scarcely impeccable, wholly uncheckable, 
 
 Not indisputable, shockingly mutable, 
 
 Quite irrefutable, frankly inscrutable 
 
 Pure hypothetical, sheerly heretical, 
 
 Hyperaesthetical, strongly emetical, 
 
 Quite unendurable, simply incurable, 
 
 Still without rival in things adjectival, 
 
 Adjectives, more of 'em, many a score of 'em 
 
 (Subject quite deathless, but we're getting breathless), 
 
 All of 'em latent in S(omebody)'s patent, 
 
 Invisible wink under water. 
 
 AND SO FAREWELL AND HOME-ALONG. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 AMADOU 
 
 The price of Amadou is going up. It is going up mainly 
 on account of this advertisement. Buy a bull of Amadou. 
 It will be steadier than Victory Bonds. Much steadier 
 than War Stock. 
 
 What is Amadou ? 
 
 Amadou is a fungoid growth which is about to settle 
 upon the dry-fly angler. Once it settles upon him it will 
 stick. He will be unable to free himself. Indeed, he will 
 not want to. Ask your chemist for it. Ask your dentist. 
 
 Dentists use it for drying the hollows in teeth. Dry-fly 
 men who know what is good for them use it for drying 
 flies. Salmon-fly anglers are going to find it first-rate for 
 the purpose of drying and preserving their salmon flies. 
 Wet and mangled May flies washed and then dried with it 
 resume their pristine youth and beauty. Amadou quad- 
 ruples the life of an ordinary May fly. 
 
 Has Amadou any drawback ? 
 
 Yes — one ! . , 
 
 Amadou absorbs petroleum as readily as water. There- 
 fore, when a fly is dried with Amadou it needs to be re- 
 paraffined. 
 
 Thus the price of petroleum is going up too. 
 
 What great events from little causes spring ! 
 
 The little cause that put me on to Amadou was a six- 
 foot Berkshire parson — broad in proportion. 
 
 Bless the little cause. 
 
 PRINTED IN CRRAT BRITAIN BY BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND BSHBR 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 « ' 
 
 
 B£C cm NOV ■ 2 »/j 
 
 i 
 
 
 LD21A-40m-8,'71 
 (P6572gl0)476-A-32 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
»U U^bl4 
 

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