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THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
THE DRY FLY 
 AND FAST WATER 
 
 FISHING WITH THE FLOATING FLY ON 
 
 AMERICAN TROUT STREAMS, TOGETHER WITH SOME 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON FLY FISHING IN GENERAL 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE M. L. LA BRANCHE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1914 
 
,L3 
 
 Copyright, 1914, by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published May, 1914 
 
 MAY i3ibl4 
 
 ©CI.A3 71813 
 
PREFACE 
 
 To expound a theory into willing ears upon a 
 trout stream is one thing; to put those same 
 ideas into writing so that they may be intel- 
 ligently conveyed to one who reads them is 
 quite a different thing. Of this I am convinced. 
 However this may be, my readiness to do the 
 one induced in some of my angling friends the 
 belief that I could do the other. They insisted 
 that I try — and this book is the result. My ex- 
 perience in preparing these pages has filled me 
 with the profoundest respect for those persons 
 who may be truthfully characterised as authors. 
 I began the work with a good deal of timidity, 
 and, as it now appears to me, considerable 
 temerity. After completing the task to the best 
 of my ability I submitted the manuscript to 
 some of my credulous friends. Strange to say, 
 after reading it, even then they insisted that I 
 publish it. By this decision it seems to me they 
 proved two things — their friendship for me and 
 their absolute unfitness to be literary critics. 
 
vl PREFACE 
 
 Even so, under their instruction and guidance, 
 the book is presented to the angling public with 
 the hope that it may find some small favour 
 among them. 
 
 G. M. L. L. 
 
 May, 19 14. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Early Experiences 3 
 
 II. The Value of Observation .... 22 
 
 III. The Rise 44 
 
 IV. Where and When to Fish .... 87 
 V. The Imitation of the Natural Insect 134 
 
 VI. Some Fancies — Some Facts . . . . 176 
 
 VII. The Point of View 204 
 
 VIII. A Few Patterns of Flies . . . . 212 
 
THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
THE DRY FLY AND FAST 
 WATER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 EARLY EXPERIENCES 
 
 From my earliest boyhood I have been de- 
 voted to the fly fisher's art, having been in- 
 ducted into it by my father, who was an ardent 
 angler before me. For more than twenty years 
 I have fished the near-by streams of New York 
 and Pennsylvania; not a season has passed 
 without having brought to me the pleasure of 
 casting a fly over their waters. Each recurring 
 year I find myself, as the season approaches, 
 eagerly looking forward to the bright days when 
 I can again go upon the streams. In the early 
 days of the season, however, I am content to 
 overhaul my gear, to dream alone, or talk with 
 others about the active days to come; for I 
 have never enjoyed going upon the waters so 
 long as the air still holds chill winter's bite. 
 
 During the early years of my angling I fished 
 
4 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 my flies wet or sunk. Such was the manner 
 universally prevailing upon our streams and 
 the manner of my teaching. I had read about 
 the dry fly and knew that its use was general 
 in England, which country may justly be said 
 to be its place of origin. That this is true may 
 not be gainsaid, yet it seems to me remarkable 
 that with all the reputed ingenuity of Americans 
 the present development of dry fly fishing for 
 trout should be almost entirely the work of 
 British sportsmen. That the use of the dry fly 
 on streams in this country has not been more 
 common may be due to a pardonable disin- 
 clination upon the part of expert wet fly anglers 
 to admit the weakness of their method under 
 conditions as they now exist. Their method 
 has served them well, as it did their fathers 
 before them, and perhaps they are loath to sur- 
 render it for something new. In the earlier 
 days trout were much more abundant in our 
 streams, and the men who fished the streams 
 and wrote upon the subject of fly fishing in 
 this country may have felt that a knowledge of 
 the habits and haunts of the fish was more es- 
 sential to success in taking them than the em- 
 ployment of any particular method. The merits 
 of up-stream over down-stream fishing caused 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCES 5 
 
 some discussion among anglers, and some of 
 these discussions found permanent place in 
 angling literature. The discussion, however, 
 seems always to have been confined to the 
 question of position and seems never to have 
 been extended to the manner of fishing the flies. 
 Individual characteristics or experiences led 
 some to advocate a certain manner of manipu- 
 lating the dropper-fly and others to recommend 
 the sinking of the tail-fly to a greater depth; 
 but the flies seem always to have been manipu- 
 lated upon the theory that to be effective they 
 must be constantly in motion. It seems to 
 have been conceded by all that the flies should 
 be always under the control and subject to the 
 direction of the rod, thus enabling the angler to 
 simulate living insects by twitching them over or 
 under the surface of the water — a practice that 
 is the exact opposite of the method of the dry 
 fly fisher, who casts a single fly lightly upon the 
 surface of the water and permits it to float with 
 the current over or near the spot where he knows 
 or believes a fish to lie. 
 
 Many expert wet fly anglers in this country 
 have been using the floating fly for years, but 
 most of them use it only on water where they 
 consider it may prove more effective than the 
 
6 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 wet fly — usually upon the quiet surface of a 
 pool or on flat, slow water. Contrary to the 
 prevailing notion, however, the floating fly is 
 not a whit more deadly on water of this charac- 
 ter than the wet fly, when the latter is properly 
 fished. The difficulty in taking trout on such 
 water may be ascribed to two causes: (i) When 
 the water is low and clear, or where it has little 
 motion and the surface is unruffled, the fish is 
 likely to perceive the activities of the angler 
 at a greater distance than is possible in rougher 
 water, and is thus sooner warned of his approach. 
 (2) When the angler has been careful to conceal 
 himself from the fish, the fly cast in the usual 
 wet fly manner is likely to be refused because 
 of its unnatural action, the wake made by 
 dragging the flies across the smooth surface 
 being sufficient at times to deter even small fish 
 from becoming interested in it. The floating 
 fly is far more effective than the wet, "jerky" fly, 
 because, as no motion is imparted to it, it is 
 more lifelike in appearance. When such a fly, 
 properly presented, is refused such refusal may 
 be due as much to a disinclination upon the 
 part of the fish to feed as to his suspicion having 
 been aroused. The wet fly fished sunk^ with no 
 more motion given to it than is given to the 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCES 7 
 
 floating one (a single fly being used in each 
 case), will prove quite as deadly as the latter on 
 smooth water; and where many casts with the 
 dry fly may be necessary to induce a rise, the 
 sunk fly may appeal upon the first or second 
 attempt, because its taking demands of the fish 
 no particular exertion. The effort of the angler 
 to impart a *' lifelike" motion to the wet fly 
 upon the surface will often be quite enough in 
 itself to defeat his purpose. Such effort should 
 never be made on clear, glassy water, for, while 
 it may occasionally be successful, unseen fish 
 are put down. 
 
 For many years I was one of those who firmly 
 believed that only the smooth, slow stretches of 
 a stream could be fished successfully with the 
 dry fly. Experience, however, has taught me 
 that the floater, skilfully handled, is applicable 
 to any part of a swift stream short of a per- 
 pendicular waterfall. My unorthodox method 
 of using it — which may be described as creating 
 a whole family of flies instead of imitating an 
 individual member thereof — may be character- 
 ised by some as "hammering" or "flogging," 
 and condemned as tending to make fish shy 
 because the leader is shown so often. My an- 
 swer to this is that if the blows struck by the 
 
8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 fly are light no harm is done. And, further- 
 more, if showing gut to the fish really tends 
 to make them more wary, the sport of taking 
 them, in my estimation, is pushed up a peg. 
 
 It is not my purpose to contend that the dry 
 fly is more efl^ective than the wet fly, although 
 I do believe that, under certain conditions, the 
 dry fly will take fish that may not be taken in 
 any other manner. I do contend, however, 
 that a greater fascination attends its use. All 
 game birds are pursued with the same weapon, 
 but the more difficult birds to kill have the 
 greater attraction for sportsmen; and my pre- 
 dilection for the dry fly is based on the same 
 principle. 
 
 My first dry fly was cast over the Junction 
 Pool — the meeting of the waters of the Wil- 
 lowemoc and the Mongaup — about fifteen years 
 ago, and the fact that I cast it at all was due 
 more to the exigency of the occasion than to 
 any predevised plan for attempting the feat. 
 Every day in the late afternoon or evening I 
 noted four or five fish rising in the pool formed 
 by these two streams, and repeated attempts 
 upon my part to take one of them by the old 
 method absolutely failed me, although I put 
 forth diligent efforts. The desire to take one 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCES 9 
 
 of these fish became an obsession, and their 
 constant rising to everything but my flies ex- 
 asperated me to the point of wishing that I 
 might bring myself to the use of dynamite. 
 
 One evening in looking through my fly book I 
 found in one of the pockets a cHpping from the 
 Fishing Gazette, which I had placed there during 
 the preceding winter. If my memory serves 
 me, I think this article was entitled "Casting 
 to Rising Fish." At any rate, the caption was 
 such that it caught my eye, as it seemed to 
 suggest the remedy for which I was searching. 
 The article proved to be an account of the 
 experience of an angler who used the dry fly 
 for trout, and his exposition of the manner of 
 using it seemed so clear that I determined to 
 try it myself upon the pool over the rising fish 
 in the late afternoon. Barring my inability 
 to execute properly the things the author 
 described and that I was called upon to do, 
 the only stumbling-block in my way was the 
 impossibility of my obtaining an artificial fly 
 that resembled the insects upon which the trout 
 were feeding, and the author laid a great deal 
 of stress upon the necessity of using such an 
 imitation. I remember that, in a measure, I 
 was mildly glad of this, because I felt that I 
 
lo THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 would have an excuse for failure if I were un- 
 successful. I "doctored'* some wet flies into 
 what I thought to be a fair imitation of the dry 
 fly by tying the wings forward so that they 
 stood at right angles to the body, and then 
 sallied forth to the pool. On my way to the 
 stream I went alternately hot and cold betwixt 
 hope and fear. I rehearsed in my mind all the 
 things I had to do, and I think I was coldest 
 when I thought of having to float the fly. The 
 writer had recommended the use of paraffin-oil 
 as an aid to buoyancy, and this commodity was 
 about as easily procurable in Sullivan County 
 at that time as the philosopher's stone; in my 
 then frame of mind the latter would probably 
 have proven quite as good a buoyant. The pool 
 was but a stone's throw from the house, and I 
 arrived there in a few minutes, only to find a 
 boy disturbing the water by dredging it with a 
 worm. Him I lured away with a cake of choco- 
 late, sat down to wait for the rise which came 
 on shortly, and by the time I was ready there 
 were a half dozen good fish feeding on the sur- 
 face. I observed two or three sorts of flies 
 about and on the water, to none of which my 
 poor, mussed-up Queen-of-the-Waters bore the 
 slightest resemblance. This did not deter me, 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCES ii 
 
 however, and I waded boldly out to a posi- 
 tion some forty feet below and to the right of 
 the pool. My first cast amazed me. The fly 
 alighted as gently as a natural insect upon the 
 surface, and, watching it as it floated down 
 toward the spot where a fish had been rising, I 
 saw it disappear, a little bubble being left in 
 its place. Instinctively I struck, and to my 
 astonishment found that I was fast in a solid 
 fish that leaped clear of the water. The leaping 
 of this fish was a new experience, as I had never 
 seen a trout jump as cleanly from the water. 
 After a few flights and a determined rush or 
 two I netted him — a rainbow trout just over a 
 foot long and the first I had ever taken. This 
 variety of trout had been placed in the stream 
 a few years before as an experiment, and few 
 had been caught. Stowing my prize in my creel, 
 I prepared for another attempt as soon as the 
 excitement in the pool had subsided. The fly 
 I had used was bedraggled and slimy and would 
 not float, so I knotted on another. My second 
 attempt was as successful as the first, and I 
 finally netted, after a tussle, a beautiful native 
 trout that weighed a little over one pound. 
 Four fine fish fell to my rod that evening, all 
 within half an hour, and the fly was taken on 
 
12 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 the first cast each time. If such had not been 
 the case I doubt very much if I should have suc- 
 ceeded, because I am certain that my confidence 
 in the method would have been much weakened 
 had I failed to take the first fish, and my subse- 
 quent attempts might not have been made at 
 all, or, if made, would probably have ended in 
 failure. 
 
 For several years after my first experience 
 with the floating fly I used it in conjunction 
 with the wet fly, and until I read Mr. Halford's 
 "Dry Fly Fishing," when, recognising his great 
 authority and feeling that the last word had 
 been said upon the subject, I used the dry fly 
 only on such water as I felt he would approve 
 of and fished only rising fish. Some time later 
 on I read George A. B. Dewar's "Book of the 
 Dry Fly." Mr. Dewar says: "I shall endeavour 
 to prove in the course of this volume that the 
 dry fly is never an aff^ectation, save when re- 
 sorted to in the case of brawling, impetuous 
 streams of mountainous districts, where it is 
 practically impossible of application." Here 
 again I felt inclined to listen to the voice of 
 authority and felt that I must abandon the 
 dry fly. I was accustomed to fish such streams 
 as the Beaverkill, Neversink, Willowemoc, and 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCES 13 
 
 Esopus, in New York; the Brodhead and Sho- 
 hola, in Pennsylvania; the Saco and its tribu- 
 taries, in New Hampshire, and others of similar 
 character — all brawling, impetuous, tumbling 
 streams — and it seemed to me that by continu- 
 ing to use the dry fly on them I was profaning 
 the creed of authority and inviting the wrath 
 of his gods upon my head. Since then, how- 
 ever, I have continued the use of the dry fly 
 on all of these streams, and a number of years 
 ago abandoned the use of the wet fly for all 
 time. 
 
 Since I began casting the fly over the streams 
 of the region I have mentioned their character 
 has greatly changed in many particulars, and 
 conditions are not the same as they were twenty 
 years ago. The natural streams themselves 
 have changed; the condition of the water flow- 
 ing in them has changed; the sorts of fish in- 
 habiting the waters have changed; and the 
 methods of taking the fish have changed, or 
 should change; and it is to show why this last 
 is true that the following pages are written. 
 
 The changes that have taken place in the 
 character of our mountain streams may be at- 
 tributed to many causes, chief of which, how- 
 ever, is the destruction of the timber which at 
 
14 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 one time covered the hills through which they 
 have their course. During the frequent and 
 long-continued droughts the denuded hills, baked 
 hard as rock, shed the occasional summer showers 
 as readily as the back of the proverbial duck; 
 the streams become turbid torrents for a few 
 hours, after which they run down, seemingly to 
 a lower mark than before. So long as the forests 
 covered the watersheds the rains as they fell 
 were soaked up by the loose and porous earth 
 about the roots of the trees, were cooled in the 
 shade of the leaves and branches, and slowly 
 percolated into the tiny brooklets through 
 which they were fed to the streams for many 
 days. Under present conditions the tempera- 
 ture of the streams is much higher than for- 
 merly, and, while the temperature has seldom 
 risen to a point where it has been fatal to the 
 fish, it has risen in many streams to a point 
 that is distasteful to the native brook-trout 
 {Salvelinus fontinalis) . 
 
 It is not unreasonable to assume that the 
 heat of the water has a very deleterious effect 
 upon the vitality of the fish during certain 
 years when the droughts are long sustained 
 and, should the condition have existed for a 
 great length of time prior to the spawning sea- 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCES 15 
 
 son, that the progeny for the year would prob- 
 ably come into being lacking the vitality neces- 
 sary to overcome the attacks of natural ene- 
 mies and disease. A bad spawning season, of 
 course, reduces the hatch for the year, but is 
 ordinarily not noticed by the angler until two 
 or three years later, at which time the unusu- 
 ally small number of immature fish taken be- 
 comes a matter of comment among the fre- 
 quenters of the streams. A native angler who 
 has made it a practice to visit the spawning- 
 grounds of trout for over twenty-five years stated 
 to me that during the season of 1910 the redds 
 were occupied by trout, but that not a fish 
 spawned on any of them in a stretch of nearly 
 a mile of the stream which flows past his home 
 and which was under his constant observation 
 during the entire season. It is difficult for me 
 to believe that such a thing could have been 
 possible, yet I know the man to be a careful 
 and accurate observer, and his statement must 
 be given credence. He seemed frightened at 
 the prospect and alarm.ed as to the future of 
 the stream, and he besought me for an expla- 
 nation of the condition — which I was unable to 
 give. My diary for that year had been de- 
 stroyed, so that I was then, and am now, unable 
 
l6 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 to even theorise as to whether or not the failure 
 to spawn was due to weather conditions pre- 
 vaihng at that time. Let us hope, assuming 
 that my informant was not mistaken, that the 
 curious condition observed by him was confined 
 to the stretch of the stream that he investigated. 
 Let us hope, further, that the fish, even in that 
 stream, will not become addicted to such an 
 ungenerous and unnatural habit. 
 
 Great numbers of trout must be destroyed in 
 the periodical freshets that carry masses of ice 
 tearing and grinding over the beds of the moun- 
 tain streams. When the ice breaks up gradually 
 there is very little danger to the fish; but a 
 sudden and continued thaw, accompanied by a 
 steady fall of warm rain, washes the snow from 
 the hillsides, swells the streams into wild tor- 
 rents, and rips the very bottom out of them. 
 Any one who has witnessed the forming of an 
 ice-jam and its final breaking must marvel at 
 the possibility of any fish or other living thing 
 in its path escaping destruction, so tremendous 
 is the upheaval. A few years ago a jam and 
 freshet on the Brodhead, besides uprooting 
 great trees along the banks, lifted three iron 
 bridges within as many miles from their stone 
 abutments and carried each of them a hundred 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCES 17 
 
 yards down-stream, leaving them, finally, mere 
 masses of twisted iron. These bridges were 
 twelve or fifteen feet above the normal flow of 
 the stream, yet, even so, they did not escape de- 
 struction. How, then, is it possible for stream 
 life to stand against such catastrophe ? Further- 
 more, this scouring of the beds of the streams 
 by ice and debris carried down during the floods 
 undoubtedly destroys great quantities of the 
 larvae of the aquatic insects which form an im- 
 portant part of the trout's food, and this, too, 
 indirectly affects the supply of fish available to 
 the angler's rod. After a severe winter and a 
 torrential spring there is a noticeable dearth 
 of fly upon the water — another of the many 
 causes of lament of the fly fisherman of to-day. 
 Directly or indirectly, all of the conditions 
 above described are the result of the ruthless 
 cutting of the timber from the hills. Happily, 
 there is reason to hope that these conditions are 
 not going to grow worse, because the present 
 movement toward the preservation of the for- 
 ests seems to be gaining headway; conservation 
 of nature's resources will come to be a fixed 
 policy of our National and State Governments, 
 and if the policy is pushed with vigour and per- 
 sistence our children's children may some day 
 
1 8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 see our old familiar streams again singing gaily 
 through great woods like those our fathers knew. 
 With the elements, man, beast, and bird all 
 intent upon its destruction, it is a marvel that 
 our native brook-trout survives. But live on 
 he does, though his numbers constantly de- 
 crease. The great gaps left in his ranks are 
 being filled by the alien brown trout — his equal 
 in every respect but that of beauty. True, 
 there is a wide difference of opinion in this par- 
 ticular, and there are some who will go so far 
 as to say that the brown trout is, all round, the 
 better fish for the angler. When feeding he 
 takes the fly quite as freely as the native trout, 
 leaps vigorously when hooked, grows rapidly to 
 a large size, and seems better able to withstand 
 abnormal changes in the temperature of the 
 water, which are so often fatal to Jontinalis. No 
 one deplores the scarcity of our own beautiful 
 fish more than I do; but we must not be blind 
 to the facts that the brown trout is a game-fish, 
 that he is in our streams and there to stay, and 
 that our streams are suited to him. He is a 
 fish of moods and often seems less willing to 
 feed than the native trout; but for that reason 
 alone, if for no other, I would consider him the 
 sportier fish. When both varieties are taking 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCES 19 
 
 freely and their fighting quaUties compared, it 
 is not easy to decide which is the gamer. The 
 leaping of the brown trout is often more im- 
 pressive than the determined resistance of the 
 native trout, and the taking of a particularly 
 active or particularly sluggish fish of either 
 variety is frequently made the basis for an 
 opinion. It seems to me that, in any event, the 
 taking of even a single fair fish of either variety 
 on the fly is an achievement to be put down as 
 a distinct credit to the angler's skill and some- 
 thing to be proud of and to remember. Our 
 native brook-trout is much loved of man. It 
 has come to be something more than a fish: 
 it is an ideal. It will always hold first place in 
 the hearts of many anglers. I fear, however, 
 that it must yield first place in the streams to 
 its European contemporary, he having been 
 endowed by nature with a constitution fitted to 
 contend against existing conditions and sur- 
 vive. 
 
 My many years' experience upon the streams 
 of New York and Pennsylvania have brought 
 me to realise that changed conditions call for 
 an expertness of skill and knowledge that 
 anglers of the past generation did very well 
 without. The streams now are smaller, the fish 
 
20 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 in them fewer and warier, and the difficulties of 
 the angler who would take them greater. Three 
 flies fished down-stream may still be a permis- 
 sible method for those who pursue the trout of 
 the wilderness, but the sportsman should now be 
 willing to adopt the use of the single light sur- 
 face fly when pursuing the trout of our domestic 
 waters; and, if he does adopt it, as he gains in 
 skill he will come at last to realise that it has a 
 virtue not possessed by its wet brother. I can 
 illustrate my point best by quoting an experi- 
 ence of my own that happened several years 
 ago. 
 
 One day, while fishing an up-State stream, 
 I met a dear old clergyman, who, after watch- 
 ing me for a long time, came up and said: 
 "Young man, I have fished this stream for 
 nearly forty years, and they will tell you at 
 the house that I have been accounted as good 
 as any man who ever fished here with a fly. I 
 have killed some fine fish, too; but in all that 
 time I have never been able to take trout as 
 regularly as you have taken them in the few 
 days you have been here. I am told that you 
 use the dry fly and have some particular pat- 
 terns. If it is not asking too much, will you 
 be good enough to give me their names and 
 
EARLY EXPERIENCES 21 
 
 tell me where they may be obtained?" I gave 
 him the information he asked, and volunteered 
 some instruction by pointing out that his gear 
 was not suitable for the work, convincing him 
 that such was the case by placing my own rod 
 in his hands. We sat in the shade for a couple 
 of hours exchanging ideas, and to prove or 
 explode a theory of mine he agreed to fish a 
 certain pool with me later in the day. He used 
 my rod and rose and killed a brown trout of 
 one pound five ounces, a little later leaving the 
 fly in a heavier fish. He was an expert at plac- 
 ing the fly, but, not being used to the stiffer 
 rod and lighter gut, he struck too hard, with the 
 resultant smash. Being a good angler, he easily 
 overcame this difficulty. He now fishes only 
 with a rod of fine action and power, which en- 
 ables him to place his fly easily, delicately, and 
 accurately a greater distance than was possible 
 with the "weeping" rod he formerly used. 
 This he abandoned once and for all, and with it 
 the wet fly. He came into the knowledge and 
 enjoyment of the dry fly method, and he has 
 since then frankly admitted to me that he 
 greatly regretted having realised so late in life 
 that the actual taking of trout constitutes but 
 a very small part of the joy of fly fishing. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 
 
 Several years ago I was looking on at a 
 tennis match between the champion of America 
 and one of the best men England ever sent to 
 this country, and as I watched their play I 
 could not help but marvel at the accuracy with 
 which the players placed their shots. Their 
 drives were wonderful for direction and speed. 
 On nearly every return the ball barely cleared 
 the net and was seldom more than a few inches 
 above the top as it passed over. A friend who 
 knew many of the experts told me how they 
 attained to their remarkable precision. It was 
 the custom of many of them, he said, when pre- 
 paring for the big matches, to practise for ac- 
 curacy by driving the ball against a wall. He 
 said this was particularly true of the American 
 champion, and that it was not unusual for him 
 to use up a dozen or more balls in a day's prac- 
 tice. The wall had painted across its face a 
 line of contrasting colour at a height from the 
 ground equivalent to that of the top of a regu- 
 
THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 23 
 
 lation tennis net, and upon the line were painted 
 a number of disks about ten inches in diameter. 
 Standing at a distance from the wall equivalent 
 to the distance of the base-line of a regulation 
 tennis-court from the net, the player would 
 return the ball on its rebound from the wall, 
 striving each time to so place it that it would 
 strike just above the line. The accomplish- 
 ment of a satisfactory score after a succession 
 of drives would convince the player that he had 
 good control of his stroke, and he would then 
 turn his attention to the disks, against each of 
 which he would drive twenty or more shots, 
 taking them in turn and keeping a record of 
 hits in each case. The accuracy developed by 
 such practice was truly remarkable, and I hes- 
 itate to mention the number of times in succes- 
 sion one expert made clean hits — it seemed an 
 incredible number. 
 
 I have seen golfers practising the weak places 
 in their game for hours with as much zeal and 
 earnestness as if they were playing a match, 
 and a polo player of my acquaintance practises 
 his strokes upon a field at his home, riding 
 his ponies as daringly and recklessly as though 
 a championship depended upon his efforts. 
 The devotees of these and similar active sports 
 
24 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 are keenly alive to the necessity of constant 
 practice, that spirit of competition which is so 
 much a part of them making any endeavour 
 that will aid toward high efficiency, or improve 
 game or form, seem worth while. And in all 
 sports, particularly those in which the com- 
 petition is individual, whenever and wherever 
 opportunity presents itself there will be found 
 hundreds of enthusiasts following every play 
 of the expert, keenly studying his method, ob- 
 serving his form, and absorbing and storing 
 the knowledge so gained for their own practice 
 later on court or field. So, too, even though 
 competition has no place in fly fishing, and 
 should have none, the angler ought to strive 
 always to "play a good game.'* He should 
 practise the tactics of his art with the same zeal 
 as do the followers of competitive sports if he 
 hopes ever to become an expert fly fisherman 
 in the highest sense of that much misused term. 
 The casual angler who looks upon fishing as 
 merely incidental to his periods of recreation, 
 during which his chief concern is the recupera- 
 tion of tired brain and unstrung nerves, may 
 feel that he is making a business of his pleasure 
 by devoting much time to the study of his an- 
 gling. In a measure, this is true, and it would 
 
THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 25 
 
 be asking much, indeed, of him who thinks of 
 fly fishing only as a pastime. But to him who 
 realises that it is a sport — a sport that is also 
 an art — there is no incident, complex or simple, 
 that is unworthy of his attention and consider- 
 ation. No sport affords a greater field for ob- 
 servation and study than fly fishing, and it is 
 the close attention paid to the minor happenings 
 upon the stream that marks the finished angler. 
 The careless angler frequently overlooks in- 
 cidents, or looks upon them as merely trivial, 
 from which he might learn much if he would but 
 realise their meaning at the time. 
 
 Of greatest importance to the dry fly angler 
 is that mastery of the rod and line that enables 
 him to place his fly lightly and accurately upon 
 the water. I venture to assert that one who 
 has had the advantage of expert instruction in 
 handling a rod, and is thereby qualified to de- 
 liver a fly properly, will raise more trout upon his 
 first attempt at fishing a stream than another 
 who, though he knows thoroughly the haunts 
 and habits of the fish, casts indifferently. The 
 contrast between the instructed novice and the 
 uninstructed veteran would be particularly no- 
 ticeable were they to cast together over the 
 same water in which fish were rising freely. 
 
26 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 Whether or not the novice would take more 
 fish than the veteran is another question. Lack- 
 ing experience, the novice would probably hook 
 few fish and land fewer. But he would be 
 starting right, and the necessity of overcoming 
 later on that bad form likely to be acquired by 
 all who begin without competent instruction 
 would be eliminated, and the stream knowledge 
 of the veteran would come to him in time. 
 
 The beginner should watch the expert at 
 work and should study particularly the action 
 of the rod. He should note that the power 
 which impels the line forward starts from the 
 butt, travels the entire length of the rod, is 
 applied by a slight forward push rather than by 
 a long sweep, and ends in a distinct snap. He 
 will soon learn that the wrist must do the real 
 work, and no better scheme for teaching this 
 has ever been devised than the time-honoured 
 one of holding a fly book or a stone between 
 the casting arm and the body. The proper 
 action of the rod will be best learned if he fasten 
 that part of the butt below the reel to the fore- 
 arm with a piece of string, a strap of leather, or 
 a stout rubber band, the effect of which device 
 will be to stop the rod in an almost perpen- 
 dicular position when the line is retrieved. The 
 
THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 27 
 
 pull of the line as it straightens out behind him 
 will be distinctly felt, will give him a good idea 
 of the power and action of his rod, and serve 
 as a signal for the forward cast. He should 
 practise casting as often as his spare time 
 will allow — over water when possible, but over 
 grass if necessary. He should not wait until 
 the stream is reached and actual fishing prob- 
 lems begin to press upon his notice for solu- 
 tion. His mind will then be occupied with 
 many other things; hence, the knack of han- 
 dling the rod should have been already acquired. 
 After the beginner is satisfied that he can 
 properly place and deliver his fly he should 
 turn his attention to the study of the fish and 
 the currents of the stream. If he has been a 
 wet fly angler his experiences will stand him in 
 good stead, as it will qualify him to locate the 
 likely haunts of the fish. Long and varied 
 though his experience may have been, however, 
 the use of the dry fly will open avenues of ob- 
 servation and knowledge that were hidden from 
 him while he practised the old method. My 
 own experience is responsible for this rather 
 broad statement, but not until after I had be- 
 come an ardent advocate of the dry fly, and had 
 abandoned the wet fly for good and all, did I 
 
28 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 realise the truth of it. In the beginning I was 
 ever on the alert for rising fish, and, instead of 
 boldly assailing promising water, wasted much 
 time, on many occasions, scrutinising the water 
 for some indication that a fish was feeding. In 
 this way I frequently discovered non-feeding 
 fish lying in places where I had not expected to 
 find them. Such fish were then the more easily 
 approached because I was able to assume a 
 position myself that would not disclose my 
 presence. Just as frequently, too, I have seen 
 fine fish cruising about, and have taken many 
 that might have been driven away by the slight- 
 est movement on my part. In many cases 
 I have been compelled to remain absolutely 
 motionless for ten or fifteen minutes before a 
 fish would come to rest long enough to make 
 worth while an attempt to get a fly to it. Nearly 
 every time, too, that a fish has been hooked I 
 have seen it actually take the fly — an action 
 always instructive, because fish vary greatly in 
 their manner of taking, and interesting, be- 
 cause in it lies one of the real charms of fly 
 fishing. 
 
 The continued use of a floating fly upon 
 water where the angler sees no indication of 
 feeding fish, but where experience tells him that 
 
THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 29 
 
 they may lie, seems to develop in him a remark- 
 able keenness of vision. This is a direct re- 
 sult, perhaps, of the attention which he gives 
 to his fly. My own experience is that while I 
 am watching my fly float down-stream some 
 stone of irregular formation, peculiar colour, 
 or difference in size from others about it, lying 
 upon the bottom, arrests my eye, with the effect 
 of making the water appear shallower or clearer 
 than it really is. My fly appears to be the 
 centre of a small area upon the surface of the 
 water through which everything is seen as 
 clearly as through a water-glass, the shadow of 
 the fly itself upon the bottom often being plainly 
 discernible. Anglers who fish the dry fly learn 
 to identify the living shadow that appears sud- 
 denly under the fly as a trout ready to take it 
 on its next drift down-stream, and to recognise 
 a fish as it sidles out from the bank or swings 
 uncertainly toward the fly just as it passes the 
 boulder that shelters him. In either case an 
 interesting opportunity is afforded, particularly 
 for exercising a very necessary attribute — self- 
 control. 
 
 It may be that many happenings I now see 
 Upon the stream passed unnoticed when I used 
 the wet fly because of some lack of concen- 
 
30 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 tration and observation. If this be so, I have 
 the newer method to thank for the development 
 of those faculties. I have learned not to over- 
 look a single minor happening. Perhaps my 
 keenness to ascribe some meaning to the slight- 
 est incident has resulted in the building of many- 
 very fine structures of theory and dogma upon 
 poor foundations. This may be true, but I am 
 certain that their weaknesses have always be- 
 come apparent to me in time; and, on the other 
 hand, I am just as certain that I have been 
 greatly benefited by my habit of close attention 
 to the little things that happen on the stream. 
 For instance, I cherished the belief for many 
 years that one advantage of up-stream fishing 
 lay in the fact that when the fly was taken the 
 hook was driven into the fish's mouth instead 
 of being pulled away, as in down-stream fishing. 
 I thought this to be one of the strongest argu- 
 ments in favour of up-stream fishing, and, theo- 
 retically, it is. But I know now that many 
 fish that take a floating fly do so when they 
 are headed down-stream. While there are still 
 many reasons why up-stream fishing is the better 
 method, this particular argument no longer has 
 weight with me. 
 
 As I remember it, the strongest admonition 
 
THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 31 
 
 of my early schooling on the stream was never 
 to remain long in one place. I was taught to 
 believe that if a rise was not effected on the 
 first few casts subsequent effort on that water 
 was wasted — that the trout would take the fly 
 at once or not at all. I clung to this belief for 
 years, until one day I saw a fine fish lying in 
 shallow water and took him after casting a 
 dozen or more times. Since then I have taken 
 fish after upward of fifty casts, and I rarely 
 abandon an attempt for one that I can see if 
 I feel certain that it has not discovered me. 
 Even when I have not actually seen a fish, but 
 have known or believed one to be lying near by, 
 the practice has proven effective. Thus I have 
 had the satisfaction of accomplishing a thing 
 once believed to be impossible; but I have 
 gained more than that: I have learned to be 
 persevering and, what is still more important, 
 deliberate. The man who hurries through a 
 trout stream defeats himself. Not only does he 
 take few fish but he has no time for observation, 
 and his experience is likely to be of little value 
 to him. 
 
 The beginner must learn to look with eyes 
 that see. Occurrences of apparently little im- 
 portance at the moment may, after considera- 
 
32 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 tion, assume proportions of great value. The 
 taking of an insect, for instance, may mean 
 nothing more than a rising trout; but the posi- 
 tion occupied by this fish may indicate the 
 position taken by others in similar water. The 
 flash of a trout, changing his position prepara- 
 tory to investigating the angler's fly, will fre- 
 quently disclose the spot occupied by him before 
 he changed his position; and, later on, when the 
 fish are not in the keenest mood for feeding, a 
 fly presented there accurately may bring a rise. 
 The quick dart up-stream of a small trout from 
 the tail of a pool is a pretty fair indication that 
 a large fish occupies the deeper water above; 
 it indicates just as certainly, however, that the 
 angler has little chance of taking him, the ex- 
 citement of the smaller fish having probably 
 been communicated to his big relative. 
 
 The backwater formed by a swift current on 
 the up-stream side of a boulder is- a favourite 
 lurking-place of brown trout. I was fishing 
 such places one day, and found the trout oc- 
 cupying them and in rather a taking mood. 
 In approaching a boulder which looked particu- 
 larly inviting, and while preparing to deliver my 
 fly, I was amazed to see the tail and half the 
 body of a fine trout out of the water at the side 
 
THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 33 
 
 of the rock. For a moment I could not believe 
 that I had seen a fish — the movement was so 
 deliberate — and I came to the conclusion that it 
 was fancy or that a water-snake, gliding across 
 the stream, had shown itself. Almost immedi- 
 ately, however, I saw the flash of a trout as he 
 left the backwater and dashed pell-mell into 
 the swift water at the side of the boulder. 
 Down-stream he came until he was eight or ten 
 feet below the rock, when, turning sharply and 
 rising to the surface, he took from it some in- 
 sect that I could not see. Up-stream again he 
 went, and shortly resumed his position in the 
 dead water, showing half his body as he stemmed 
 the current at the side of the rock. Once more 
 this performance was repeated, and I knew I 
 had stumbled upon an interesting experience. 
 Hastily measuring the distance, hoping to get 
 my fly to him before some natural insect might 
 excite him to give another exhibition of gym- 
 nastic feeding, I dropped it about three feet 
 above him, and, contrary to my usual method 
 of retrieving it as it floated past the up-stream 
 side of the boulder, I permitted it to come down 
 riding the top of the wave, when the same flash 
 came as the trout dashed after it. The fish 
 could be plainly seen almost directly under the 
 
34 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 fly. As it reached the rapidly flattening water 
 below the rock, he turned and took it viciously, 
 immediately darting up-stream again. He was 
 soundly hooked, however, and I netted a fine 
 fish lacking one ounce of being a pound and a 
 half. My experience heretofore had been that 
 if a fly were placed a yard or so above this point 
 and allowed to float down to the rock a feeding 
 fish would rush forward — often as much as two 
 feet — and take it, immediately turning or back- 
 ing into his position again. I had assumed from 
 this observation that when the fly passed the 
 rock or backwater without a rise it should be 
 retrieved and another try made. This fish sat- 
 isfied me, however, that when really feeding, or 
 when inclined to feed, trout may be lured com- 
 paratively long distances by inviting looking 
 morsels. Either he did not decide to take the 
 fly until just as it was passing him or else he 
 liked the exercise of the chase. In any event, 
 he was not peculiar in his habit, because four 
 more fish were taken in the same manner the 
 same day. 
 
 In most cases when the fly is cast above a 
 boulder lying in swift water (which I consider, 
 under certain conditions, one of the best places 
 to look for brown trout) it wiU be taken as it 
 
THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 35 
 
 approaches the rock, the trout darting out and 
 retiring immediately to avoid being caught in 
 the swifter water on either side of his strong- 
 hold. But if it is not taken, and is permitted 
 to float down with the current, it may bring a 
 response. 
 
 It was a somewhat similar observation which 
 prompted the practice and, I must say, rather 
 dubious development of what some of my friends 
 are pleased to call the "fluttering" or *' bounce" 
 cast. This cast is supposed to represent the 
 action of a fluttering insect, the fly merely 
 alighting upon the water, rising, alighting again, 
 repeating the movement three or four times at 
 most; finally coming to rest and being allowed 
 to float down-stream. It rarely comes off, but 
 when it does it is deadly; and, for the good of 
 the sport, I am glad that it is difficult, though 
 sorry, too, for the pleasure of accomplishing it 
 successfully is really greater than that of taking 
 fish with it. The cast is made with a very 
 short line — never over twenty-five feet — and 
 the fly alone touches the water. The action of 
 the fly is very similar to that produced by 
 the method known as "dapping," but instead of 
 being merely dangled from the rod, as is the 
 case when "dapping," the fly is actually cast. 
 
36 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 It should be permitted to float as far as it will 
 after its fluttering or skipping has ceased. The 
 beginner practising the cast will do well to 
 cast at right angles to the current, and he should 
 choose rather fast water for his experimenting. 
 The speed of the water will cause the fly to 
 jump, and the action it should have will be the 
 more readily simulated than if the first attempts 
 are made on slow water. 
 
 I had made a flying trip to the Brodhead, 
 and, with that strange fatality which seems so 
 often to attend the unfortunate angler rushing 
 off for a week-end in the early season, found the 
 stream abnormally high and horrible weather 
 prevailing. After many attempts to get into 
 the stream, with results equally disastrous to 
 my clothing and temper, I abandoned all idea 
 of wading and walked and crawled along the 
 bank, casting my fly wherever I could but 
 rarely finding good water that could be reached, 
 and rising but a few small fish. As there was 
 a gale blowing in my face directly down-stream, 
 it was practically impossible to place a fly where 
 I wished with any delicacy, and I decided to 
 abandon the sport after trying a pool just above 
 me that I knew contained big fish. My first 
 cast on this water, made during a lull, fell 
 
THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 37 
 
 lightly, but brought no response, and after a 
 further half dozen fruitless attempts I began to 
 think of the fine log fire at the house. I made 
 one more cast, however, this time in the teeth 
 of the wind. Using but twenty-five feet of line 
 and a short leader, I was able to straighten both 
 in the air. The wind kept all suspended for an 
 instant, the fly, accompanied by a small part of 
 the leader, finally falling upon the water, where 
 it remained but a fraction of a second, the 
 wind whisking it off and laying it down a foot 
 away. This happened five or six times as the 
 fly came down-stream, and during the time it 
 was travelling a distance of not over eight or 
 ten feet five trout, each apparently over a pound 
 in weight, rose to it, but missed because it was 
 plucked away by the wind just in time to save 
 them. I did not get one of them, and, as it was 
 practically impossible to continue casting under 
 the prevailing conditions, I left the stream. It 
 was brought home solidly to me that day, how- 
 ever, that it was the action of the fly alone that 
 moved the fish — and my day was not badly 
 spent. I cannot say as much of the many other 
 days since then that I have spent in what I feel 
 were rather foolish attempts to imitate the effect 
 produced by the wind on that day. 
 
38 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 The study of the positions taken by big fish 
 when they are feeding, and those which they 
 occupy when they are not, is an important part 
 of the education of the fly fisher. Each time 
 the angler takes a good fish or sees one feeding, 
 if he will note in his diary its position, the con- 
 dition of the water, temperature, atmosphere, 
 time of day, and the insect being taken, he 
 will soon have an accumulation of data from 
 which he may learn how to plan a campaign 
 against particular fish at other times. Ex- 
 tremely interesting in itself, the study of insects 
 is of great value to the angler in his attempts 
 at imitation, and the information gleaned from 
 autopsy might not be acquired in any other 
 manner. 
 
 It may be said to be an axiom of the fly fisher 
 that where a small trout is seen feeding rarely 
 need a large one be looked for. But the actions 
 of a small fish in sight may sometimes indicate 
 the presence of a larger one unseen. The tak- 
 ing of a fine trout on a certain stream in Sulli- 
 van County, on August 27, 1906, after one of 
 those long periods of drought so common in 
 recent years, convinced me of this. I had been 
 waiting for even a slight fall of rain, and, quite 
 a heavy shower having come up the evening 
 
THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 39 
 
 before, I started for this stream. Upon my 
 arrival there I was surprised to learn that not a 
 drop of rain had fallen in weeks, and that the 
 shower which had been heavy twenty miles 
 away had not reached the vicinity. While 
 driving from the station to the house at which 
 I was to stop, along a road that paralleled the 
 stream, the many glimpses I had of the latter 
 filled me with misgivings. At one point the 
 stream and road are very near each other, and, 
 stopping my driver, I got out to look at a 
 famous pool below a dam which had long out- 
 lived its usefulness. It was a sizzling-hot day, 
 and at that time — eleven o'clock — the sun was 
 almost directly overhead; yet in the crystal- 
 clear water of this pool, with not a particle of 
 shade to cover him, lay a native trout fourteen 
 inches in length which afterward proved to 
 weigh one pound three ounces. Too fine a fish, 
 I thought, as I clambered back into the carriage, 
 to be occupying such a place in broad daylight, 
 and I promised myself to try for him later in 
 the afternoon. Returning about six o'clock, I 
 found him in the same position, and during the 
 full twenty minutes I watched him, while he 
 appeared to be nervously alert, he never moved. 
 Notwithstanding the fact that everything was 
 
40 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 against me, and knowing that the chances were 
 more than even that the fish would see me, my 
 rod, or my line, I made my plans for approach- 
 ing him; yet, busy as I was, I could not rid my 
 mind of this ever-recurring thought: with all 
 the known aversion of his kind to heat, and their 
 love of dark nooks, why was this fish out in 
 this place on such a day? Why did he not find 
 a place under the cool shade of the dam ? With 
 the instinct strong within him to protect him- 
 self by hiding, the impulse must have been 
 much stronger that forced him to take so con- 
 spicuous a stand — a mark to the animals which 
 prey upon his kind. As there were absolutely 
 no insects upon the water, and scarcely enough 
 current to bring food of other sort to him, he 
 could not have been feeding. The only reason, 
 then, to account for his being there — the thought 
 struck me forcibly enough — was his fear of a 
 bigger fish. The logical conclusion was that if 
 a fish of his inches (no mean adversary) exposed 
 himself so recklessly the one that bullied him 
 must be quite solid. I tested this fellow^s ap- 
 petite with a small, pinkish-bodied fly of my 
 own invention, and, standing about forty feet 
 below and considerably to the left, dropped it 
 three or four feet above him; but, although it 
 
THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 41 
 
 was certain he could see the fly, he made no 
 attempt to go forward and take it. As it 
 neared him, however, he rushed excitedly to the 
 right and then to the left, taking the fly as it 
 came directly over him, and, before I could 
 realise what had happened, came down-stream 
 toward me at a great rate. As he was securely 
 hooked, I kept him coming, and netted him 
 quietly at the lip of the pool. 
 
 That this fish did not take the fly the instant 
 it fell meant to me that he was afraid to go for- 
 ward into the deeper water which harboured his 
 larger fellow; and his action as the fly appeared 
 over him meant that, while he wanted it badly 
 enough, he would not risk an altercation with 
 the other, which might also have seen it. When 
 he did finally decide that the coast was clear, 
 he took it quickly and rushed down toward 
 the shallower water where he might be secure 
 against sudden attack. 
 
 If some of the theories developed in those 
 few moments appear fanciful, it must be re- 
 membered that my mind was occupied with the 
 thought that the pool contained a larger fish, 
 and the conclusions based upon the subse- 
 quent actions of this smaller one only tended to 
 strengthen this belief. Fanciful or not, I was 
 
42 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 rewarded a few minutes later by the sight of a 
 monster tail breaking the surface just under 
 the water that trickled over the apron of the 
 dam. Having prepared a gossamer leader, pre- 
 ferring to risk a smash to not getting a rise, 
 I dropped a small Silver Sedge — which I used 
 because it could be more plainly kept in sight — 
 almost immediately in the swirl and was at 
 once fast in a lusty fish. After many abortive 
 attempts to lead him into the diminutive net I 
 had with me, I flung the thing, in disgust, into 
 the woods. I finally beached the fish and lifted 
 him out in my hand. He was a fine brown 
 trout, eighteen and three quarter inches in length, 
 and weighed, the next morning, two pounds 
 nine ounces. 
 
 While I was engaged with this fish another 
 rose in practically the same spot under the 
 apron of the dam. Hurriedly replacing the be- 
 draggled fly with a new one, I waited for the 
 trout to show himself, which he did presently, 
 and again I was fast — this time in one of the 
 best fish I have ever seen in these waters. It 
 seemed an interminable length of time, though 
 probably not over ten minutes, that I was en- 
 gaged with this one, and it was impossible to 
 move him; he kept alternately boring in toward 
 
THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 43 
 
 the dam and sulking. In one of the latter fits 
 I urged him toward me somewhat too strongly, 
 and he was off. Immediately I was afforded a 
 sight of what I had lost as he leaped clear of 
 the water in an evident endeavour to dislodge 
 the thing that had fastened to his jaw. The 
 smash made as he struck the water still resounds 
 in my ear, and when I say that this fish would 
 have gone close to five pounds I but exercise 
 the right to that license accorded all anglers who 
 attempt to describe the size of the big ones that 
 get away. Having one good fish in my creel, 
 however, I really had some basis for my cal- 
 culation — at any rate, he was one of the best 
 fish I have ever risen. Examining my leader, 
 I found it had not broken, but the telltale curl 
 at the end proved that, in the fast-gathering 
 gloom, I had been careless in knotting on the 
 fly. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE RISE 
 
 Any disturbance of the surface made by a 
 trout is usually referred to as a "rise," but the 
 characterisation is erroneous except where it 
 is applied to fish feeding upon the surface. 
 Rising fish are the delight of the dry fly fisher, 
 but are really the easiest fish to take — pro- 
 vided, always, that no error is made in the pres- 
 entation of the fly. The angler is called upon 
 to exhibit a fine skill in casting, a knowledge of 
 the insect upon which the fish is feeding, and 
 to make the proper selection of an imitation; 
 but he is aided materially by being apprised 
 of the location of the fish, and is further helped 
 by the knowledge that he is throwing to a 
 willing one. 
 
 The study of the habits of rising fish, or, to 
 use a more inclusive term, feeding fish — be- 
 cause a feeding fish may not be a rising one — 
 is of the utmost importance to the dry fly en- 
 thusiast, who knows how difficult it is to induce 
 a fish feeding on or near the bottom to rise to 
 his floater. 
 
 44 
 
THE RISE 
 
 45 
 
 Inasmuch as the principal literature avail- 
 able on this delightful branch of angling is the 
 work of Englishmen who have, with unfailing 
 unanimity, used the same terms in describing 
 the positions and actions of feeding fish, it 
 would be unwise to attempt to employ others, 
 and for that reason I have made use of them 
 throughout this chapter. 
 
 Compared with our swift-flowing waters, the 
 gentle, slow-moving, chalk streams of Southern 
 England offer greater advantages to students 
 of the habits of feeding fish, not only because of 
 the greater deliberation with which the trout se- 
 cures his food in them but also because a greater 
 number of aquatic insects contribute to his 
 sustenance there than are found on our swift 
 streams; consequently, the English student has 
 far greater opportunity for observation. The 
 water-weeds grow so heavily on these English 
 streams that at times it is found necessary to 
 cut them out to some extent if fly fishing is to 
 be pursued. These weeds harbour great num- 
 bers of snails, shrimps, larvae, etc., of which the 
 trout are inordinately fond, and when the fish 
 are seeking this luscious fare the trials of the 
 angler fishing with a floating fly are, indeed, 
 many. Trout feeding in this manner are de- 
 
46 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 scribed as "tailing" fish, from the fact that the 
 tail of the fish is observed breaking the surface 
 of the water violently or gently, as the case may 
 demand, in his efforts to secure or dislodge his 
 prey. Heavy weed growth being unusual on 
 our swift streams, the trout do not have the 
 same opportunity to feed in the manner de- 
 scribed as their English cousins, and, conse- 
 quently, the American fly fisherman is not par- 
 ticularly interested in tailing fish; but it must 
 not be forgotten that caddis larvae abound in 
 our waters, and that trout occasionally pick up 
 crawfish, snails, and other Crustacea and Mol- 
 lusca from the bottom, usually in the less rapid 
 parts of the stream. Fish so feeding do break 
 the surface with their tails, and, even though 
 the tail be not actually seen, the action of this 
 fin in maintaining the fish's equilibrium causes 
 a swirl which is often mistaken for a rise. A 
 trout often shows his tail in rapid water but 
 this is occasioned by the necessity of forcing 
 his head down to overcome the force of the 
 current after he has taken food of some sort 
 upon the surface or just below it, and the action 
 must not be confused with that of a fish feeding 
 upon the bottom in the more quiet stretches. 
 The term "bulging" is applied to fish that 
 
THE RISE 47 
 
 are feeding below the surface upon the nymphae 
 of insects about to undergo the metamorphosis 
 which produces the winged fly. The trout is a 
 very busy fellow at this time, and covers left, 
 centre, and right field with equal facility; but 
 he occasionally misses, and at the instant of 
 his viciously breaking the surface of the water 
 the insect may be seen taking its laboured flight 
 — escaping by a hair's breadth the death which 
 pursued it. When trout are feeding in this 
 manner the angler's patience is taxed to the 
 utmost, and after a succession of flies has been 
 tried without success the discomfited angler 
 may be excused if he concludes that his arti- 
 ficial is not a good imitation. He may not be 
 far wrong. 
 
 Although aside from the main subject of dry 
 fly fishing, I will in this connection attempt to 
 show how the sunk fly may be used successfully 
 against the "bulger." As the nymph is still 
 enclosed in its shuck, or case, it is quite obvious 
 that an artificial fly made with wings is not 
 an imitation of it. Consequently, a hackle-fly 
 should be used even though it, too, is a poor 
 imitation. A suggestion of the general hue of 
 the natural is quite sufficient. The cast is 
 made some distance above the feeding fish, so 
 
48 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 that the fly will approach the trout approxi- 
 mately as the nymph would, i. e., under water 
 and rising. If no attempt be made to impart 
 motion the fly drifting with the current will be 
 more natural in its action than the angler can 
 hope to make it appear by manipulation. Be- 
 sides, the trout is an excellent judge of pace, and, 
 making for a natural looking morsel, is sorely 
 disappointed and not likely to come again if it 
 is jerked away from him at the moment he is 
 about to take it. One fly only should be used, 
 and quite as much care is required in its de- 
 livery as would be necessary were a floating fly 
 being presented. Errors made in casting are 
 more readily concealed by the current in the 
 case of the sunk fly. 
 
 When the attention of the fish Is fixed upon 
 insects beneath the surface it is difficult to at- 
 tract his notice to a floating fly, except, perhaps, 
 at such times as the fly appears before him 
 when he is close to the surface; but it can be 
 done — and in two ways. Fish so feeding are 
 moving about, darting here and there taking 
 nymphae. A swirl made by the fish in all likeli- 
 hood only marks the place where he was, and 
 he may be a yard or more up-stream, or to right 
 or left, where he went to secure the nymph. If 
 
THE RISE 49 
 
 the swirl is made by his tail at the time he 
 starts for the insect and not at the moment 
 he takes it, there is little knowledge as to his 
 actual position to be gained from the distur- 
 bance; the only indication is that he is feeding. 
 The angler must be able to distinguish between 
 the disturbance made by a bulger feeding under 
 water and that made by a fish taking a winged 
 insect upon the surface — often not a very diffi- 
 cult thing to do — and he must conduct his cam- 
 paign accordingly. The signs of the surface- 
 feeding fish are easily discernible to the quick 
 eye. The gentle rise in slow water, or the 
 swifter rush where the fly is in the current, 
 starts a ripple immediately from the centre 
 made by the nose or mouth of the fish, and, of 
 course, is unmistakable where the actual taking 
 of the insect is seen. In all cases the surface is 
 broken. The commotion made by the bulging 
 fish is started under water, and, while the dis- 
 turbance is ultimately seen upon the surface, 
 the form it assumes is more of a swirl or boil 
 and is quite unlike the concentric rings that 
 mark the actual breaking of the surface. 
 
 Occasionally, as I have said, the "fielder muff^s 
 the fly," and this is the moment that, if the 
 angler be alert, an artificial fly dropped im- 
 
50 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 mediately over the fish is likely to meet with a 
 hearty welcome. I am convinced that a trout 
 that misses his prey in this manner frequently 
 stays on the spot where he lost it long enough 
 to give the angler an opportunity to present 
 his fly, if he is within striking distance — and 
 ready. He must be prompt in making his 
 throw, however, because the fish may have his 
 attention attracted elsewhere at any moment. 
 If a rise be not effected at once the angler 
 should not try again immediately, because the 
 possibility of the fish having left his position, 
 or of having been scared by the line, or of 
 frightening another which may have come be- 
 tween, is too great to make the attempt worth 
 while. 
 
 When fish are feeding all over the pool, and 
 the angler is impatient and not content to stand 
 idly by waiting for an opportunity such as de- 
 scribed, let him try the following method: He 
 should look the water over carefully, keep out 
 of it if possible, and choose the spot where the 
 fly is to be placed. Knowledge of the water 
 and of the habits of the fish will guide him in 
 this choice, but he should not cast to the swirl. 
 Having chosen his water, which should be to- 
 ward the head of the pool, not much above its 
 
THE RISE 51 
 
 centre, and preferably where the current will 
 carry the fly down faster than the leader (the 
 choice being governed naturally by the char- 
 acter of the stretch), he should place his fly some 
 distance— a yard or two— ahead of the swirl 
 and a foot or two to the side nearest him, al- 
 lowing it to float down eight or ten feet; if no 
 rise is effected he should place his fly in the 
 same spot again and again until he has made 
 twenty-five casts or more. It is important that 
 each cast should be executed with the same pre- 
 cision and delicacy as marked the first attempt. 
 
 The method is based upon the theory that a 
 feeding trout — or even one that is not feeding, 
 for that matter — may be induced to take up a 
 position in line with the direction in which the 
 angler's fly is travelling, under the belief that 
 flies are coming down-stream in such quantities 
 as to make them worth investigating. Once 
 this position is compelled it is only a question 
 of time and patience upon the part of the angler. 
 The trout will rise eventually to one of this 
 "hatch." The angler cannot hope to have this 
 coup come off^, however, if he has made any 
 mistake in his casting or has shown himself or 
 his rod. 
 
 The beginner practising the method will 
 
52 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 find it most difficult to restrain an almost un- 
 controllable impulse to leave off casting in 
 the one spot in order to place his fly over the 
 swirl made by some other fish. If he gives 
 way to that impulse he courts failure — and 
 down comes the house he is building. It is 
 quite likely that a trout is preparing to investi- 
 gate the "hatch" at the very moment the angler 
 changes his water, and, of course, will be fright- 
 ened away by seeing the rod or the line which 
 is thrown over it to the other fish. The method 
 usually employed by the novice is productive of 
 nothing. Because many feeding fish are seen, 
 he hurriedly casts over this one, then over that 
 one, in the hope that his fly will be taken, and 
 finally gives up in despair when his hope is not 
 realised. 
 
 If a mistake unfortunately occurs — the dan- 
 ger of which naturally increases in proportion 
 to the number of casts made — it is quite useless 
 to carry the attempt further. The angler should 
 retire for a few moments or continue a bit far- 
 ther up or down stream, selecting a spot some 
 distance from where he began, and always 
 bearing in mind the necessity for throwing 
 above and to the near side of the swirl. If no 
 mistake is made the chances are at least even 
 
THE RISE 53 
 
 that those early evening "rises" which have so 
 long mocked his skill may show a profit. The 
 angler, however, may spend a profitable quarter 
 hour watching the insects upon the water or 
 rising from it, and catching some for closer 
 examination. During this time, if there is a 
 cessation of swirls, as there likely will be, it 
 indicates that the nymphae are becoming 
 fewer and that, the "hatch" being over for the 
 present, his last chance has come for a try 
 at the bulgers. He should proceed, as be- 
 fore, to create his artificial "hatch," and he 
 will have even a better chance of success because 
 the attention of the trout will be less occupied. 
 
 In selecting water in which to place the fly, in 
 order to take bulging fish by the method I have 
 suggested, the angler will do well to choose that 
 where the current is swift but the surface un- 
 broken; and too much stress cannot be laid upon 
 the importance of having the fly float down as 
 nearly as possible in the same lane and position 
 each time. When the trout have ceased feed- 
 ing upon the nymphae his opportunity for cast- 
 ing to fish that are really rising is come, and he 
 may try these until darkness drives him home. 
 
 One who has observed trout feeding upon the 
 tiny Diptera called indiscriminately by anglers 
 
54 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 "black gnats," "punkies," "midges," etc., is 
 quite inclined to believe that, while "smutting" 
 is rather an inelegant term to apply to the fish, 
 the insects themselves, considering the provo- 
 cation, have been let off too lightly in being 
 described as "smuts" and "curses." These di- 
 minutive pests seem to be abroad at all times 
 of the day, but are particularly numerous in 
 the late afternoon, when clouds of them may be 
 seen hovering over the still water of the pools. 
 At such times the trout seem to be busily feed- 
 ing, but the keenest observation does not dis- 
 close what it is they are taking. These "curses" 
 are so small that it seems incredible that large 
 trout should be interested in them. That they 
 are is easily proven by autopsy, and I have 
 found solid masses of them in the gullets and 
 stomachs of sizable fish, proving that they must 
 have been extremely busy if the insects were 
 taken singly. If one could see these tiny things 
 upon the water, and could see a trout rise to 
 them, he would have convincing evidence that 
 they are taken singly; but, though my eyesight 
 is still good, I have never been able to satisfy 
 myself that I have actually seen a fish take one 
 of them. After many experiences with trout 
 under such conditions, and particularly after a 
 
THE RISE 55 
 
 series of observations extending on one occasion 
 over a period of four successive days, I am al- 
 most ready to believe that the fish do not wait 
 for them to fall upon the water. This notion — 
 perhaps fanciful — came to me while on a pool 
 that had been my objective during an after- 
 noon's fishing, and upon which I intended to 
 close the day. Arriving there about a half hour 
 before sundown, I was not a little delighted to 
 find fish rising freely all over. After studying 
 them for a few moments I concluded that they 
 were not "bulging," because the surface was 
 broken each time with a distinct "smack." 
 They could not have been "tailing," because 
 the water was about four feet deep. They 
 were not rising to any insects that I could see, 
 although I looked long and steadily. Yet they 
 rose freely, and each fish rose again and again in 
 practically the same spot. 
 
 Using the smallest fly that I had with me, 
 a flat-winged "black gnat" tied on a No. i6 
 hook, I cast faithfully but unavailingly for some 
 time, endeavouring to interest two fish which 
 were nearest me, and until I was quite ready to 
 confess myself beaten. However, I decided to 
 try them with a larger fly, and while preparing 
 to tie this on my attention was attracted by four 
 
S6 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 distinct clouds of insects hovering over the water 
 — on the wing, certainly, but making no flight. 
 They were merely dancing in the air about two 
 feet above the pool. Watching closely, I saw the 
 insects gradually decrease this distance until but 
 an inch or two separated the lower extremity of 
 a cloud of them from the water, when directly 
 underneath would come another "smack" as 
 the tail of a trout broke the surface. Immedi- 
 ately the swarm would scatter, though but for 
 an instant, collecting again to perform the same 
 evolution as before, when again they would be 
 scattered by a fish under them. This happened 
 to all four swarms in rapid succession, and it 
 was quite evident that a trout was under each. 
 Every time the insects were close to the water 
 the tail of a trout would be seen and water 
 would be thrown amongst them. Query: Did 
 the trout deliberately throw water at these 
 insects with the intention of drenching those 
 within reach and in order that they might be 
 picked up at leisure after they had fallen into 
 the stream? And, if so, why were the fish not 
 observed in the act of picking them up? Or 
 did the sight of the insects excite the anger of 
 the fish, or a sport-loving instinct — if, indeed, 
 fish are capable of these emotions ? 
 
THE RISE 57 
 
 My subsequent experience with these fish 
 tended only to confuse me further in my guess- 
 ing. This *' spattering" game went on for fifteen 
 or twenty minutes, and was brought to a con- 
 clusion, finally, by the retirement of the "curses," 
 which left the scene perpendicularly, going 
 straight up until lost to view. After they had 
 disappeared the fish stopped rising. Having 
 marked them down, I determined to have one 
 more try with a large fly, and, to my amaze- 
 ment, my first cast brought a swift rise, but no 
 connection was made. Resting the fish for a 
 moment, I tried him again; he rose, and I was 
 fast in what appeared to be a very good fish. 
 I had great difficulty in leading him to the 
 lower end of the pool, so that I might not dis- 
 turb the others, and finally netted him. He 
 proved to be a small trout and was hooked on 
 the side just above the tail. I then tried the 
 others, and, although I rose each one at least 
 three times, I hooked none, nor on any occasion 
 did I feel that the fly had been touched. By 
 this time it was quite dark and I left for home. 
 
 On the three following days I met with the 
 same experience. I had innumerable rises to 
 my fly after the "curses" had left, hooked but 
 one fish each evening, and, by a remarkable 
 
S8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 coincidence, each foul and near the tail. Again, 
 query: Was this mere accident or were the 
 trout trying to drench my fly? Were they still 
 on the lookout for the sport afforded them by 
 the clouds of insects? The gullets of the fish 
 taken were lined with the small insects, the 
 stomachs also being well filled with them; but 
 how the fish took them after they had risen 
 without my seeing some indication of it, I 
 cannot imagine. I feel quite certain that they 
 were not taken at the instant of the rise, 
 because the insects did not touch the water at 
 any time; nor did the trout show any part of 
 their bodies above the surface except their tails. 
 So they could not have been taken in the air. 
 Some day, perhaps, the problem may be solved, 
 but at present I have no solution to offer. 
 
 A bulging or smutting fish and a cursing an- 
 gler are not a rare combination. If there is 
 anything more perplexing and vexing than the 
 sight of fish rising all about and one's best ef- 
 forts going unrewarded, I cannot imagine what 
 it is. 
 
 A bulging fish may be taken with an imitation 
 of the insects he is feeding upon, either sunk in 
 one form or floating in another; but a smutting 
 fish cannot be appealed to with any imitation 
 
THE RISE 59 
 
 of his food of the moment. The colour of 
 the pests may be imitated, but no ingenuity 
 of man can fashion an artificial so that it will 
 resemble in size the minute form of the natural; 
 and, even if ingenuity could do it, the hook to 
 be used in conformity would be absolutely use- 
 less and probably quite as difficult to make as 
 the fly. Lacking a correct imitation of the 
 "curses," which, even if good, might not be 
 taken, one may accept the rebuffs offered to 
 his fly with an equanimity born of the knowl- 
 edge that he is not alone in his trouble. 
 
 If smutting fish are to be taken at all they 
 will probably be taken on a fly that has no re- 
 semblance to any particular insect except, per- 
 haps, one that is indigenous to the stream, or 
 one in which the angler has faith. It may as- 
 sume any form, flat-winged or erect. Colour, 
 of course, is not important, except that it should 
 not be too brilliant; a fly of sombre hue, such 
 as the Whirling Dun, Cahill, or Evening Dun, 
 being very effective, the Gold-Ribbed Hare's Ear 
 or Wickham's Fancy frequently being accepted. 
 I am inclined to think that a small fly receives 
 no more attention than a large one, if as much; 
 but nothing larger than a No. 12 or No. 14 hook 
 should be used. 
 
6o THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 Meeting with failure while the insects are 
 about, the angler should rest until they have 
 disappeared and then, having marked the posi- 
 tion of the fish, try them with the method de- 
 scribed for bulgers. Failing again, let him figure 
 it out if he can. 
 
 When fish are feeding upon some particular 
 species of insect it is quite logical to assume 
 that an imitation of that species will appeal to 
 them more readily than an imitation of any 
 other. But when the insects are numerous, as 
 they are on occasions, and the fish are mov- 
 ing about, the chance of the artificial fly being 
 selected from among the great number of nat- 
 urals upon the water is one to whatever the 
 number may be. As a general rule, the larger 
 fish take up positions which by virtue of might 
 are theirs for the choosing and almost invari- 
 ably in places where many flies are carried down 
 by the current. If they be rising steadily the 
 angler is enabled to reduce the odds against 
 him by his ability to place his fly near the spot 
 where he knows one to be lying. It does not 
 follow, however, that because certain insects are 
 observed flying about they are of the species 
 with which the trout are engaged for the moment. 
 
 If an insect be observed flying as though 
 
THE RISE 6i 
 
 it had some objective point in view, it may 
 be safely concluded that it has but recently 
 assumed the winged state. In this case it is 
 attractive to the fish only at the moment it 
 emerges from its shuck, or immediately after- 
 ward while it is resting upon the water, for the 
 very obvious reason that it does not appear 
 upon the water again until it is about to deposit 
 its eggs, if a female, or, if of the opposite sex, 
 when it falls lifeless after the fulfilment of its 
 natural duties. 
 
 When the insects are seen dancing about over 
 the water, oftentimes a considerable height 
 above it — in some cases thirty feet or more — 
 the observer may be quite satisfied that they 
 are the perfect males of the species waiting for 
 the females to appear. After the sexual func- 
 tion has been completed the female may be seen 
 flitting over the water, dipping to the surface 
 and rising again, in the act of depositing her 
 eggs, finally coming to rest as the function is 
 completed, only to be swept away to her death. 
 As she does not travel any considerable distance 
 during this last act of her life, she proves of 
 greatest interest to the fish at this stage of it. 
 
 One who observes closely will see that at the 
 moment the female approaches the water, or 
 
62 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 during her subsequent dips, attempts, frequently 
 successful, are made by the fish to capture her. 
 As these efforts require some activity, they are 
 resorted to usually by the more agile dandi- 
 prats. The larger fish are quite as interested 
 in the dainty morsel as are their younger 
 brothers, but they do not make the same 
 frantic efforts to secure it, preferring to attend 
 the fly closely in its movements until the oppor- 
 tunity presents itself to take it with little or 
 no exertion. This is usually at the time ovi- 
 positing is about completed or the fly is resting 
 upon the surface of the water preparatory to 
 another flight. The females of some species are 
 less active in the performance of this duty than 
 those of others. They select the more placid 
 stretches of the stream, ride quietly upon its 
 surface, and the eggs exude from the oviduct 
 as they sail along. Occasionally, after travel- 
 ling in this manner for a time, they rise from 
 the water, fly a short distance, and settle again. 
 They are incapable of guiding themselves and 
 are naturally carried along by the current and 
 over the fish. 
 
 It has been my observation that during the 
 period of ovipositing a great majority of the in- 
 sects are headed directly up-stream, instinctively 
 
THE RISE 63 
 
 knowing, perhaps, that contact with the cur- 
 rent in that position will more readily relieve 
 them of their burdens. And, while I have no 
 certain knowledge that it is so, I am inclined to 
 believe that the setae or hair-like tail enables 
 them to assume and maintain this position. 
 At any rate, it should be the angler's ambition 
 to imitate this action, and present his counter- 
 feit with its tail or hook end coming down to 
 the fish. This gives the added advantage of 
 having the business end taken first and elimi- 
 nates the danger of disturbing the fish by hav- 
 ing the shadow of the leader thrown over him 
 in advance. To do it successfully calls for a 
 nicety of judgment in the handling of rod and 
 line; but when the skill is acquired its success- 
 ful execution has its own reward. 
 
 The utmost caution should be used in ap- 
 proaching a feeding fish. The danger of put- 
 ting him down does not depend solely upon his 
 getting sight of the angler; he may also be 
 apprised of the angler's coming by the excited 
 darting up-stream of smaller fish which have 
 been below him. If the character of the water 
 to be fished indicates that other and smaller 
 fish may be hidden, or if their presence be dis- 
 closed by their feeding, it is much safer to cast 
 
64 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 at right angles to the selected fish than to at- 
 tempt to cast from below and over the smaller 
 ones. If the situation demands that the fly be 
 placed from this position it should be floated 
 down to the fish from a point two or three feet 
 above and should not be cast directly over him. 
 Inasmuch as the trout is more likely to see the 
 rod at this angle, a longer line should be thrown 
 than would otherwise be necessary and, if the 
 fish has been well spotted, great care must be 
 exercised in presenting the fly without undue 
 accompaniment of leader. 
 
 The fly may be presented alone by using the 
 horizontal cast. If an attempt is being made to 
 drop the fly three feet above the fish, it is neces- 
 sary to aim at a spot six feet above, with a bit 
 longer line than will just reach, suddenly check- 
 ing the cast at the very end as it straightens. 
 This will have the effect of throwing the fly 
 down-stream. The leader will describe a sharp 
 curve and follow after, and will not be seen by 
 the fish before he sees the fly. After the fly has 
 alighted, the rod should be held consistently 
 pointed directly at the fly and in a horizontal 
 position. Held in this way, it is less likely to be 
 seen by the fish and a better control of the line 
 is had if a rise be effected. 
 
THE RISE 65 
 
 There are, in fact, good reasons why the rod 
 should be held horizontally whenever and wher- 
 ever the floating fly is being used, the line being 
 stripped in by the unoccupied hand as much as 
 may be necessary to keep the fly under control. 
 
 If the current be rapid between the angler and 
 the fish, he should use a foot or two more of line 
 and try to throw a larger curve in the leader so 
 that the fly may reach the fish before drag is ex- 
 erted upon it. If the cast be well done there is 
 at least an even chance that the fly will be taken; 
 if not well done, no move should be made to 
 retrieve the fly until it has floated some distance 
 below the fish, and even then the retrieve should 
 not be made directly from the water with the 
 full length of line. The line, leader, and fly 
 will be swept down-stream at a speed depend- 
 ing upon the current, and will be approaching 
 the angler's bank. By stripping the line in 
 slowly and carefully, the fly may be lightly 
 whisked off with little or no disturbance of the 
 surface when there is little but the leader upon 
 the water, and another attempt made. The 
 angler may continue this process as long as he 
 feels he has made no mistake. 
 
 If the fly has been refused after a number of 
 casts, and the fish continues to rise, it is some 
 
66 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 consolation to know that he has not been dis- 
 turbed by the casting. A change of tactics is 
 very often effective in such cases; and, if the fly 
 be placed very close to the fish instead of being 
 floated down to him, its sudden appearance, 
 giving but little time for investigation, may 
 cause him to rise to it. 
 
 When a rising fish may be cast to without 
 disturbing those below him, the angler is in a 
 more favourable position. Where practicable, 
 the effort should be to make the throw with 
 the leader curved and above the fly. Natu- 
 rally, this is more easily accomplished when the 
 fish — looking up-stream — is on the angler's left 
 hand. Unless one be ambidextrous, or skilful 
 enough to throw with the right hand from over 
 the left shoulder, a fish under the right-hand 
 bank is difficult to reach in this manner. Until 
 the cast has been mastered, no attempt should 
 be made to throw the curve; but one need not 
 despair of taking fish in this position, even 
 though this skill be lacking. The fly may be 
 thrown straight, but from a more obtuse angle; 
 and if, instead of being placed directly over or 
 above the fish, it be placed slightly above and 
 a foot to the near side of the spot where he 
 rose, the danger of scaring him off with the 
 
THE RISE (,^ 
 
 leader is lessened, and the chance of his taking 
 it not a bit. 
 
 Where a long cast is required, the line should 
 never be extended to the length required to 
 reach the fish. The distance should be mea- 
 sured carefully, and, when the fly in the false or 
 air casts reaches a point five or six feet from 
 the fish, that much line — which should be 
 stripped from the reel and held in the left 
 hand — should be allowed to pass through the 
 guides on the next forward cast. This is called 
 shooting the line. Not only is it of great as- 
 sistance in attaining accuracy, but the momen- 
 tum imparted to the ''live" line, that part al- 
 ready clear of the top, is lost and does not 
 travel down to the fly, which, shorn of impulse, 
 remains suspended for an instant above the 
 water and falls thereon as lightly as the pro- 
 verbial feather. 
 
 The fly should never be aimed directly at the 
 water, but at an imaginary point three or four 
 feet above, and a like distance in advance 
 of, the spot it is desired to reach. This di- 
 rection must be implicitly observed in this 
 method of casting, because the fly will invari- 
 ably fall short unless a greater length of line 
 be used than is apparently necessary. Very 
 
68 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 often the fly will fall heavily if just the required 
 length of line is used without "shooting." 
 
 Where a fish is rising in the strong current, a 
 short line, not over twenty-five feet, will be suffi- 
 cient and quite enough to handle, as it is returned 
 very quickly to the angler. In this case the 
 "shoot'* may be abandoned in the actual deliv- 
 ery of the fly and used only to lengthen the line 
 between casts after the retrieve, which should 
 be made only when the fly has passed consider- 
 ably behind the fish — the exact distance natu- 
 rally being determined by the circumstances. 
 The line should be stripped with the left hand 
 to keep pace with the speed with which the fly 
 travels and no faster, else its action will not be 
 natural. Nothing but the fly and leader should 
 be on the water, and as little of the latter as 
 possible. Get behind the fish, but do not cast 
 directly over him. The fly should come down 
 past him to one side or the other, with the 
 leader always on the same side — away from the 
 fish. 
 
 Early in the season, if the weather be pro- 
 pitious and the stream in good condition, it is 
 not unlikely that fish will be seen rising through- 
 out the day — perhaps not all of the time but 
 often enough to keep the angler alert. The 
 
THE RISE 69 
 
 fact that they are rising at all is quite sufficient 
 to arouse his interest, because, even though the 
 fish nearest him does not take his fly, the one 
 above may; and, all things considered, he may 
 hope to have a fairly interesting day, with the 
 further chance, if fortune smiles, of a good one. 
 
 How different the situation confronting the 
 angler who elects to fish the streams in the hot 
 summer months, with the water at its lowest 
 mark, clear as crystal — or gin, as the English- 
 man has it — and not a fish to be seen rising the 
 whole livelong day, for the very good reason 
 that no insects are about to offer inducement. 
 Even in June these conditions sometimes pre- 
 vail, with the redeeming feature, however, that 
 toward evening the falling temperature, or the 
 approach of darkness, or both, seem to induce 
 a rise of insects, with an accompanying rise of 
 trout. The angler, having patiently waited for 
 this time, sets hard at work and is content to 
 take a couple of fair fish in the hour or so before 
 dark. 
 
 I confess to a certain weakness for the stream 
 during those periods of extreme heat when the 
 local experts agree that it is almost impossible 
 to take fish. Actuated, perhaps, as much by a 
 desire to take a good fish as by the hope of 
 
70 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 learning whether or not their theories were cor- 
 rect, I have gone to the stream under such 
 conditions and have had some curious experi- 
 ences. I have taken fine fish on broiling hot 
 days when there seemed to be little difference 
 between the temperature of the water and the 
 air. On days when the "hatch" has been so 
 thin that one would be warranted in thinking 
 that the trout had forgotten that there ever was 
 such a thing as a fly, I have taken some of my 
 best fish. On the other hand, there have been 
 many occasions when I have met with utter 
 defeat, and, all in all, I hardly know what I 
 have really learned from the experiences, so 
 varied have they been. 
 
 One insufferably hot July day convinced me, 
 however, that there are times when trout are 
 interested neither in food nor in anything else. 
 For three sultry hours I cast over every likely 
 spot. I never rose a fish. I never saw one rise. 
 I did not see a fish. 
 
 At a beautiful pool, small but of good depth, 
 considering the state of the water, I felt that 
 my last chance had come, and, after covering 
 the whole surface carefully, without result, de- 
 liberately waded into it, hoping to scare any 
 fish that might be there and so learn where 
 
THE RISE 71 
 
 they were hiding. I did not see a fin, and 
 had about decided it was tenantless, when, 
 looking down, I saw, close to my feet, the tail 
 of a fish sticking out from under a small boulder. 
 I looked under the up-stream side of the boulder, 
 hoping to see the fish's head, but could not, as 
 there was no hollow on that side. I gently 
 stroked that part of the fish in sight with the 
 tip of my rod, and received in acknowledgment 
 a gentle waving of the tail. Placing my gear 
 behind me in the dry bed of the stream, I pro- 
 ceeded to move the boulder to see what manner 
 of trout this might be. Not until I had it com- 
 pletely removed did he stir — and then he moved 
 but a short distance to a similar hiding-place. 
 He was a brown trout about fifteen inches long, 
 and so sluggish was he that it would have been 
 the simplest matter to have seized him with my 
 hands. 
 
 A short distance above the pool there is a 
 dam famous for the big trout which make their 
 home under it. I covered the water faithfully, 
 without success, and, after I had finished, crawled 
 out upon the apron of the dam. Peering into 
 the pool below, I saw, directly underneath me, 
 eighteen or twenty trout ranging from six inches 
 in length to one old "lunker" over twenty. As 
 
72 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 this spot had been cast over repeatedly, and 
 apparently without any glaring error, I felt in 
 no humour to try again, but determined to test 
 their appetites in another way. Catching a half 
 dozen grasshoppers, I dropped one in front of 
 the big fish that led the school. He paid not 
 the slightest attention to it. Neither did any 
 of the others, not even the smallest one. I tried 
 again, throwing another grasshopper a bit up- 
 stream so that it would float down in plain 
 view for a longer time, and again provoked 
 no interest upon the part of the fish. Finally, 
 I killed one of the grasshoppers, crushing it so 
 that it would sink, and threw it well above 
 the fish. It came down under water directly 
 on a line with the big fish, which deliber- 
 ately moved a bit to one side, apparently to 
 avoid having it touch him. Each fish behind 
 him did the same thing, even the smallest ones 
 ignoring it. 
 
 Now, what sort of a fly, wet, sunk, or dry, or, 
 if the angler was inclined to try it, what sort of 
 bait could he use to interest such fish? Under 
 the conditions then prevailing — the thermometer 
 recording 94 degrees in the shade, the stream at 
 its lowest point, and the temperature of the 
 water very high — I really believe that the only 
 
THE RISE 73 
 
 chance he might have had would have been with 
 a very "wet" mint julep. Under the circum- 
 stances it would have required considerable self- 
 denial to have offered that. This heat was ex- 
 ceptional, however, and fishing in such weather 
 is quite as trying as fishing in the cold, bluster- 
 ing days of early spring. In either case, even 
 if fish are taken, enthusiasm is not greatly 
 aroused on the part of either angler or trout. 
 
 I confess I do not know what method of fly 
 fishing one may use to entice a trout when the 
 temperature is extreme, because when the fish 
 is found under a boulder, as he probably will 
 be, he will not see a floating fly, and it is almost 
 hopeless to expect a sunken fly to attract any 
 attention — witness the case of the idle fish and 
 the grasshoppers. If fish not hiding in cav- 
 erns refuse live grasshoppers dropped directly 
 in front of their noses, it is quite evident that 
 there is small chance of taking them on any 
 sort of artificial lure. 
 
 Leaving out of consideration, however, the 
 few periods of unbearable heat, that part of 
 the season between June 15 and August 31 
 may have many days rich in experience for 
 the angler, and even though there be many 
 days when the fish will be found not to be ris- 
 
74 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 ing to natural insects, the pleasure derivable 
 from trying for success is commensurate with 
 the difficulty of approaching and luring them. 
 
 When the streams are low and clear great cir- 
 cumspection and care are required in approach- 
 ing fish or likely places and in presenting the 
 fly. The slightest error will be detected at once, 
 and subsequent attempts to interest the fish will 
 be effort merely wasted. 
 
 The angler who carefully casts over and thor- 
 oughly fishes a likely piece of water should not 
 come too quickly to the conclusion that it con- 
 tains no fish. If it happens to be one of those 
 days (too frequent in the experience of the pres- 
 ent-day angler) when a great length of stream 
 may be traversed without his seeing the slight- 
 est indication of a rising fish, he may, of course, 
 if he be so inclined, comfort himself with the 
 thought that the fish are not feeding and 
 abandon his fishing. But I hope to show that 
 upon just such days the proper use of the dry 
 fly will measure the difference between an empty 
 creel and some success, even though that suc- 
 cess be limited to the probability of a single 
 good fish. 
 
 An English dry fly angler fishing our Eastern 
 American streams by rote and casting only over 
 
THE RISE 75 
 
 or to rising fish would have many empty days to 
 record in his diary. Days and days might pass 
 without his seeing the "dimple" of a big fish or 
 even the splash of a small one, except, possibly, 
 just at dusk; and at such times his skill and 
 patience would be taxed as heavily as ever by 
 any smutting fish of a chalk stream. But does 
 it follow, as some authorities seem to have sug- 
 gested, that because a fish is not risen by a few 
 casts here and there it has no inclination to 
 come to the surface or that such inclination 
 may not be aroused ? I think not, my experience 
 having proven the contrary. 
 
 The entire theory of forcing the fish to rise 
 to the fly is based upon the fact that a trout 
 may be decoyed from the position occupied by 
 it when not feeding to one fixed by the angler, 
 provided, of course, the fish is not asked to 
 come any great distance. The practice of the 
 method necessitates considerable knowledge of 
 the fish and of the character of the places it 
 frequents. The fly cast, say, twenty times, in 
 close proximity to the supposed lair of a fish, in 
 nine cases out of ten will prove more effective 
 than twice the same number of casts placed 
 indiscriminately over the water. But no glaring 
 mistake, such as undue splashing or frantic wav- 
 
76 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 ing of the rod, is overlooked by the fish. If 
 such errors have been committed, the angler 
 had best retire and try some fish that has not 
 become acquainted with him. 
 
 Having chosen the point of vantage from 
 which to assail the fish, which choice should be 
 governed, first, by reason of its being out of 
 range of the trout's vision, and then by the 
 availability of casting room behind — ^note the 
 order of importance — the single fly should be 
 placed a foot or two from the spot where the 
 fish is supposed to be and to one side of it. 
 The instructions given in regard to casting to 
 bulging fish so as to produce the effect of a 
 hatch should be followed to the letter. Even 
 where the distance seems rather too far to 
 expect the fish to travel, it is better to select 
 water that flows continuously in one direction in 
 which to place the fly. It is preferable to have 
 the fly travel in one "lane" during its prome- 
 nade, rather than to have its action marred by a 
 possible drag resulting from an attempt to get 
 it closer to the fish. If the fly has been natural 
 in its action, it is quite likely that it has at- 
 tracted the attention of the fish, and the angler 
 may at any moment be amazed to see a trout 
 backing slowly down-stream under it, seemingly 
 
THE RISE -j-j 
 
 coming from nowhere. This is the trying time, 
 as the fish, having come closer to the angler, is 
 more likely to be frightened off by any sudden 
 movement; but if the angler is careful, the 
 satisfaction of eventually seeing the fish rise 
 deliberately and fasten to the fly is not to be 
 measured by that of taking a larger fish by any 
 other method. 
 
 Great care should be exercised in retrieving 
 the fly from the water, because a fish taking 
 up a position under the angler's lane of flies 
 usually backs down-stream a bit. In no case 
 should the fly be retrieved until it has floated 
 down to a point nearly at right angles to or 
 even below the rod. Strict observance of this 
 rule will prevent scaring off many fish that 
 might otherwise be induced to rise. 
 
 Where the swiftness of the current precludes 
 any possibility of preventing drag, particularly 
 in those miniature pools behind rocks in the 
 centre of the stream called "pockets," the fly 
 may be placed lightly thereon, and as lightly 
 whisked away, being left but an instant, to 
 be returned immediately and often, until the 
 angler is satisfied that the pocket contains no 
 fish, or that he is unable to interest them if it 
 does. In any event, he need not feel that an 
 
78 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 Opportunity has been lost to him because of his 
 inability to avoid drag, for in this sort of water 
 the error is not always observed by the fish. 
 
 There can be no question but that stalking a 
 feeding fish and finally taking him on an arti- 
 ficial fly affords sport of the highest quality. 
 The taking of a fish that may be seen but is 
 not feeding, either because of lack of food or 
 disinclination, is quite as difficult to accomplish, 
 however, and is productive of equally good sport. 
 
 I relate the following story of the taking 
 of a trout under almost impossible conditions, 
 not so much to illustrate the success of the 
 method as to show the satisfaction that attends 
 the accomplishment of the feat. This individ- 
 ual fish is only one of many that I have taken 
 similarly in the many years that I have fished 
 with the floating fly, and the history of its 
 taking is given here because it illustrates and 
 bolsters up my claim that the dry fly repeatedly 
 cast over a sluggish, non-feeding fish will in- 
 duce him to rise. 
 
 The last two days of the season of 1909, 
 August 29 and 30, found me on the banks of 
 the Kaaterskill, at Palenville, Greene County, 
 N. Y. This stream is a brawling one, resem- 
 bling many Rocky Mountain streams, and 
 
THE RISE 79 
 
 some magnificent rainbow trout inhabit it; yet 
 in six hours' fishing, one afternoon, I raised but 
 one good-sized fish, in which I left my fly. The 
 dozen or more fish from ten to twenty inches in 
 length which could be seen restlessly swimming 
 about in each of the pools appeared to be inter- 
 ested in nothing but a desire to escape the 
 intense heat, and at length I abandoned the 
 sport as hopeless. 
 
 A gentleman who had once lived in that sec- 
 tion, and who had fished the streams of the sur- 
 rounding country for over thirty years, invited 
 me to fish a stream some miles away with him 
 the next day. I accepted his invitation, and the 
 morning found us on the banks of what should 
 have been the Plattekill, but proved to be 
 nothing but a mere trickle. With many mis- 
 givings I started in, my companion going up- 
 stream about a mile to fish down and meet me. 
 
 The only likely water within three or four 
 hundred yards was a pool under a dam, and here 
 I rose and pricked a good fish. Leaving him, I 
 cut across a neck of land to meet my companion 
 at the turn, and found him ready to quit. But 
 I determined to try again for the fish I had 
 risen, and, while following the stream back, dis- 
 covered a pool against the bank, some eight 
 
8o THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 feet wide and not over a dozen in length, with 
 six feet of water in it. On the bottom lay a 
 fine brown trout, as motionless as if dead. He 
 was actually lying on the sand and pebbles, 
 apparently devoid of all interest in life. I with- 
 drew quietly and, getting below him and be- 
 hind a tree-stump on the bank, put on a new 
 fly — a Whirling Dun — and, with but little hope, 
 sent the fly on its errand. It fell lightly upon 
 the glassy surface about a yard above the fish, 
 which was at all times in plain view; but he 
 seemed entirely oblivious to it. There was 
 practically no current to carry it down, and it 
 seemed an interminable length of time before 
 the fly got below the fish far enough for me to 
 take it off the water without disturbance; but 
 at last I retrieved it and, after drying it thor- 
 oughly, dropped it again. I repeated this opera- 
 tion six times before I noticed any change in 
 the position of the fish, and all of the time he 
 was just "lolling" on the bottom. The sixth 
 cast seemed to attract his attention, and, with 
 all fins moving, he lifted ever so little from the 
 bottom and stood poised. I felt that I had him 
 interested — that he was alert — and I knew that 
 the slightest mistake from then on meant failure, 
 complete and certain; and my excitement was 
 
THE RISE 8i 
 
 not helping a bit. Another cast, and I imagined 
 I could see him tremble; at any rate, his fins 
 moved rapidly, but without imparting any 
 motion to the body, except to lift it an inch or 
 two toward the surface. Each succeeding cast 
 brought the same excited action of the fins and 
 tempted him a few inches nearer the surface. 
 I thought he never would reach the top, and 
 felt that if he didn't get within his distance 
 soon I would bungle the whole affair. At last, 
 and after I had made more than twenty-five 
 casts, he had risen to within six inches of the 
 surface; as the fly was presented again, he 
 made a determined rush, stopping just short of 
 it and allowing it to float over him, apparently 
 without further interest. I gently retrieved the 
 fly, though I felt that it was all over, as the 
 fish had probably detected the fraud. However, 
 I made another cast and the fly fortunately 
 alighted softly. The fish made the same rush, 
 refusing it as before; but after the fly had 
 floated down a foot or so, he turned slowly and 
 deliberately down-stream, and, rising quietly, 
 took the fly with a distinct "suck," turned to go 
 down with it, and was fast. 
 
 This was not a very large trout — fifteen 
 inches or so — but his taking afl^orded more genu- 
 
82 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 ine sport than a dozen larger ones might have 
 yielded taken in any other way, because of the 
 circumstances under which it was accomplished. 
 I may have had a possible advantage over him, 
 because a floating fly had, probably, never been 
 cast on the stream before. Aside from this 
 fact, it cannot be said that the element of luck 
 entered into the affair at all, except, perhaps, 
 in so far as it enabled me to deliver my fly so 
 many times without mistake. I have, however, 
 taken many other and larger fish in practically 
 the same manner and by the employment of the 
 same tactics, and know the method to be sound 
 in theory and practice. For the solace of the 
 beginner who may attempt to practise the 
 method, let me add that in the beginning the 
 fish I took were, probably, a very small number 
 of those from which all thoughts of feeding were 
 driven by my bungling. 
 
 If a trout lying in a small pool and in plain 
 view, as was the one whose story has just been 
 told, could be induced to come up through six 
 feet of water to take the fly, is it not fair to 
 assume that an unseen fish may also be forced 
 to rise by the same tactics ? Of course, in the 
 case of an unseen fish, the angler labours under 
 some disadvantage, because he is casting some- 
 
THE RISE 83 
 
 what in the dark. In addition to abiUty to de- 
 liver many casts perfectly to a selected spot, he 
 must also have the experience and knowledge 
 that enable him to decide, at least approxi- 
 mately, where the fish may lie under the pre- 
 vailing conditions. If his judgment in this par- 
 ticular is at fault his chances of rising the fish 
 are gone. He should, therefore, assume that it 
 occupies any of three or four positions, and for 
 his first cast should choose that one of them 
 which may be cast over with the least danger of 
 disturbing the fish should it occupy any one of 
 the others. If a rise be not had after a certain 
 number of casts over the chosen position, the 
 others should each be fished in turn. 
 
 The chance of putting down a fish for good 
 will increase in proportion to the number of 
 casts over each position, multiplied by the num- 
 ber of positions. That a rise is not had from 
 the position first chosen will not prove that a 
 fish does not occupy it, and the angler's sub- 
 sequent casts will be made under increased 
 difficulty, because of his efforts to refrain from 
 further disturbing that water. 
 
 Before leaving this subject, and at the risk 
 of becoming somewhat tedious and tiring my 
 reader, I will relate the circumstances of the 
 
84 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 taking of an unseen fish by repeatedly casting 
 over a chosen spot — in other words, of ''forcing 
 a rise." The incident has an added interest 
 because a fellow angler witnessed it and was 
 thereby convinced that a fish could be moved 
 into position by the fly. 
 
 We were fishing the Brodhead, in Pennsyl- 
 vania. It was in July and the day was very 
 hot. The water was extremely low and very 
 clear, and the upper reach of the stream just 
 below the Canadensis bridge, which we had 
 elected to fish, did not look big enough to 
 hold a trout of any size. In one particular 
 stretch there was a hundred yards of very 
 shallow water, a small pocket on the right- 
 hand bank being the only likely looking spot. 
 I knew this stretch held many fine fish when the 
 stream was in better condition, and I decided 
 that this particular pocket might be the abiding- 
 place of a good trout. As it was approaching 
 the noon hour, I determined to go no farther 
 up-stream but to spend a half hour experi- 
 menting on the little pocket. 
 
 The surface of the miniature pool was not 
 over eight feet wide anywhere nor more than 
 that in length, but its depth below a jutting 
 rock which formed one side of it convinced me 
 
THE RISE 85 
 
 that it was worth trying, although there was no 
 actual indication that a fish occupied it. The 
 bottom was plainly discernible except in the 
 swifter water near the head, and, as no fish 
 could be seen, I selected the edge of this swift 
 water upon which to place my fly. A dozen or 
 more casts were made without any apparent 
 effect, when suddenly a yellow gleam at the 
 tail of the pocket, just after the fly had floated 
 over the lip, disclosed a fine trout poised in the 
 flattening water. Explaining the situation to 
 my companion — who was now all excitement, 
 having seen the fish, and who really did not 
 believe it could be taken — on the spur of the 
 moment I decided to try to prove my theory 
 at the risk of losing the fish. I ceased casting 
 to him. We watched him for probably two or 
 three minutes, during which time he appeared 
 to be keenly alert, when he quietly left his 
 position and moved back up-stream into the 
 swift water and out of sight. My opportunity 
 had come, although my friend thought I had 
 lost it. To make more certain that the colour 
 of the fly played no part in the affair, I sub- 
 stituted a Silver Sedge for the Whirling Dun 
 I had been using. After about a dozen casts 
 with this fly there came the same yellow gleam. 
 
86 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 and the fish was back into position again. This 
 time I continued casting, and, although he 
 seemed to "lean" toward the fly each time it 
 came down, he did not take it until it had 
 passed by ten times, finally rising deliberately 
 and fastening on the eleventh cast. He proved 
 to weigh one pound ten ounces. 
 
 To what conclusion does the observation of 
 this fish bring us ? If he had been ready to feed 
 before the artificial appeared, is it likely that 
 he would have permitted it to pass over or 
 near him a score of times before taking? And 
 when he occupied what I call his feeding posi- 
 tion, why did he allow the fly to pass ten times, 
 although exhibiting a certain interest in it each 
 time? It was never beyond his reach and could 
 easily have been taken. Was the desire to feed 
 being gradually aroused in him at each sight of 
 the fly ? When he did take it, it was done with 
 such certainty that he must have believed it to 
 be a natural, although quite unlike anything he 
 had recently seen. One thing is certain, how- 
 ever. He was decoyed from one position to an- 
 other on two occasions within a few minutes of 
 each other, and by a different pattern of fly 
 each time. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 
 
 The swift streams in the eastern part of the 
 United States must, as a rule, be fished by 
 wading. Where it is possible, because of the 
 absence of trees and brush, to fish from the 
 bank, the angler's form is silhouetted sharply 
 against the background of sky, and, to over- 
 come this disadvantage, he must retire some 
 distance from the edge of the bank, or, if he 
 wishes to come closer, must kneel or crouch to 
 avoid being seen by the fish. By casting from 
 the bank he will avoid the disturbance of the 
 water necessarily made by entering it, and this 
 is, of course, an advantage. On the other hand, 
 he is closer to the surface of the stream while 
 wading, in which position he is not so easily 
 seen, which is also an advantage. Offsetting the 
 latter, however, is the commotion made by his 
 movements, which, no matter how deliberate, 
 will make the trout nervous or apprehensive of 
 approaching danger. If he has shown himself, 
 even though the fish has been vigorously feed- 
 
 87 
 
88 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 ing, he might just as well abandon any attempt 
 to induce a rise, because the trout, having been 
 warned by his careless approach, will have 
 scurried away. The danger of putting down a 
 fish in swift water is not so great because the 
 ripples sent in advance of the angler make little 
 headway and travel no great distance against 
 a strong current. 
 
 To describe places where trout may be looked 
 for under any and all circumstances, is prac- 
 tically impossible. Very often the fish will not 
 be found where the angler thinks they should 
 be. They are as full of notions and idiosyn- 
 crasies as anglers themselves, and one may 
 hope to become familiar with their habitat in a 
 general way only, and this after close study. 
 I say "in a general way," because, while a big 
 trout may be known to inhabit a certain pool, 
 it does not follow that he is in the same spot 
 to-day that he occupied yesterday or the day 
 before. He may be looked for somewhere 
 about, but a distance of even three or four feet 
 from his previous known position may so place 
 him as to prevent the angler from approaching 
 without being seen. I am speaking of fish that 
 are not rising. Of course, if they should be 
 feeding upon the surface they are easily spotted. 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 89 
 
 Each pool or piece of water should be ex- 
 amined carefully after it has been fished. In 
 this way the deeper holes, the nooks under the 
 banks, and the crevices between boulders are 
 discovered and marked down. If the angler is 
 to spend much time on a stream that is new to 
 him, it is even permissible to enter the deeper 
 water quietly for the purpose of a thorough in- 
 vestigation; but under no circumstances should 
 this be done if other anglers are upon the stream. 
 As a rule, we are too careless of others' rights, 
 and the ethics of fly fishing should be observed 
 quite as closely as the code that governs our 
 actions in any other sport. 
 
 A long, flat stretch of the stream is likely to 
 contain many big fish, and must be approached 
 in the most circumspect manner. The angler 
 who hopes to take one of them should study 
 the water carefully before entering it, and strive 
 to determine just where the biggest fish lie. 
 The character of the water and its tempera- 
 ture and the prevailing weather conditions are 
 the data from which he must make his de- 
 ductions. 
 
 By way of iHustration, let us assume that the 
 angler is upon the stream, prepared to fish it. 
 
 The day is one somewhere between the first 
 
90 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 of May and the fifteenth of June. It is not too 
 bright, and a light wind with a touch of summer 
 in it is blowing up-stream. The water is running 
 down after a light rain, and while not crystal 
 clear is not much discoloured. It is about five- 
 thirty o'clock of the afternoon, and the trout 
 from below the stretch are coming on the feed. 
 The flat to be fished is about one hundred and 
 fifty feet long from where the water flows into 
 it to where it rolls out again at the tail, and 
 about fifty feet wide where the banks are 
 farthest apart, narrowing, fan-like, to ten feet 
 or less at the head. The current, gliding silently 
 along the left bank (looking up-stream), shows 
 the deep water to be on that side. These are 
 ideal conditions, of course, and I have chosen 
 them for that very reason. The angler is in- 
 deed fortunate who happens upon the stream 
 when they prevail. 
 
 The natural place to look for trout under 
 such conditions is anywhere along the left bank 
 in the deep water. If flies are hatching — as in 
 all probability they will be at this season — the 
 angler need but watch for the rise that will 
 indicate the position of the feeding fish. If 
 these fish be small, as will be evidenced by the 
 "staccato smack" made as the fly is taken, he 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 91 
 
 should move farther up-stream, because no 
 really big feeding fish need be looked for 
 where small ones are: vice versa, little fish rarely 
 feed in the same place and at the same time as 
 big ones. If no rise is seen, the task then is to 
 locate the fish, and, under the favourable con- 
 ditions prevailing, it may be fairly assumed that 
 they are ready to feed. There will be one place 
 in the flat where more surface food collects than 
 in any other, and one place where more comes 
 down-stream because of converging currents. 
 In one of such places the biggest fish will be 
 found. 
 
 Wherever an eddy swirls gently against a 
 small cove in the bank, or the force of the cur- 
 r-ent spends itself against a rock, making a dead 
 water or backwater above it, the fly may 
 search and find many fine trout. If the back- 
 water at the head of the stretch is of an area 
 great enough to collect and hold the foam made 
 by the tumbling water, this is the spot from 
 which the angler may hope to secure one of the 
 best fish in the pool, if not the best. One of the 
 favourite feeding positions of a large trout is 
 under this foam, and the fly, placed carefully 
 again and again, often tempts him to move into 
 his feeding position when, at the beginning of 
 
92 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 the casting, he lay outside of it. The fly should 
 be dropped lightly on the foam and permitted 
 to remain there until it is snatched away by the 
 current. 
 
 It may happen that this particular part of 
 the stretch does not contain one very large fish 
 that "lords it" over a considerable area, but a 
 number of fair-sized ones which, if feeding, will 
 be somewhat scattered, and should be looked 
 for in each of the places described. 
 
 Before or after the foam, backwater, and 
 eddies have been tried, preferably before, the 
 water on either side of the swiftest part of the 
 current should be cast over, the fly being placed 
 just at the bottom and at the side of the" lumpy" 
 water. A fly cast to this position is extremely 
 effective, dancing most naturally as it comes 
 swiftly down-stream. This water should be 
 tested thoroughly, the fly being placed always 
 in the same spot and permitted to follow the 
 same course for as long a distance as possible. 
 
 As daylight wanes, the fish often drop back to 
 the tail of the stretch, sometimes feeding upon 
 the very lip, or just above where the water be- 
 gins to quicken before it spills out. This habit 
 of trout may be due to their becoming less 
 wary as dark approaches, and, consequently, 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 93 
 
 quite willing to enter the shallower water, where 
 they find it easier to pick up a few insects or 
 a minnow or two than in the deeper, swifter 
 water above. Wherefore, if the angler has been 
 unsuccessful at the head of the stretch, let him, 
 by travelling circuitously, find a position some 
 distance below the lip, and fish the still water 
 carefully as long as he can see his fly. 
 
 If the day is hot and bright, the water low and 
 clear, and the fish not in any of the positions 
 already described, they may be in either one of 
 two places — along the bank or in the white 
 water at the head. 
 
 If the fish are lying alongside of the bank 
 they will prove to be as difficult to take as the 
 most fastidious could wish. Knowledge of the 
 crannies, depth, etc., will help the angler and 
 make his task easier. But if the water is strange 
 to him, and the trout must be searched for, his 
 task is more complicated and he must exercise 
 the greatest care in approaching. In many 
 cases the stretches are lined on both sides by 
 alders, willows, and the like, that make it im- 
 possible to cast without entering the water and, 
 by so doing, forming ripples which, advancing 
 ahead of the fly, warn the trout that danger is 
 afoot. Exercising patience, he may walk slowly 
 
94 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 and quietly into the water at the tail of the 
 stretch and as closely as possible to the bank the 
 fish are under. Having attained the desired 
 position, he should remain there long enough to 
 allow all commotion made by his entry to cease, 
 during which time no motion of the rod should 
 be made, because the sight of any moving object 
 will send the now alert trout scurrying, while the 
 ripples will make him uneasy for a short time 
 only. The horizontal cast should be used if pos- 
 sible. The fly should be floated down about a 
 foot from the bank, and it should not be retrieved 
 until it has travelled more than half the distance 
 between the angler and the spot where it alighted. 
 Casting should be continued until a mistake 
 has marred the attempt, when the angler should 
 desist, to resume after a short time has elapsed 
 if the error has not been a glaring one. 
 
 When satisfied that no trout are within the sec- 
 tion covered by the fly, the angler should lengthen 
 his line and fish the fly a few feet above — always 
 permitting the fly to travel over the water al- 
 ready fished. He should continue this until the 
 maximum line that can be handled neatly with- 
 out moving from the original position is being 
 cast. When the line becomes unwieldy (in this 
 method and position it is courting failure to 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 95 
 
 attempt anything over thirty-five to forty feet, 
 even if one is expert) an advance may be made 
 a few yards up-stream as closely to the bank as 
 the depth of the water and free casting space 
 :will permit. As it is quite possible— and likely, 
 too — that a trout has been under the fly all the 
 while, but was not interested in it, the angler's 
 advance will drive him ahead, and indications 
 of this should be sharply looked for. The dis- 
 covery of the fish will save much valuable time, 
 for in that case the immediate stretch may be 
 abandoned, because any fish above the one seen 
 will have certainly taken alarm at the actions of 
 his fellow and will have lost all desire to feed 
 for some time. 
 
 If no fish is disturbed, search the bank care- 
 fully along its length, always remembering to 
 have the fly float down a considerable dis- 
 tance before retrieving. The chances are quite 
 even, if the approach has been made carefully 
 and quietly, that a good fish will be risen. 
 In such water only skill of the highest type 
 is rewarded. If it is not possible to follow 
 along the bank under which the trout are lying, 
 the cast may be made from the opposite side; 
 but in this case a longer line should be used. 
 If the water must be entered to reach the bank 
 
96 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 from the opposite side — and this, unfortunately, 
 is usually the case — the angler should not move 
 or allow his rod to move for some time after he 
 has taken his position. 
 
 Having reached the head of the stretch, the 
 angler may go over the eddies, backwater, and 
 swift, and, if he meets with no response, the 
 white water. This, above all places, is the diffi- 
 cult water to fish with the dry fly, and many 
 anglers believe it to be quite impossible. If 
 the dry fly be fished as is the wet fly — that is, 
 cast in the swirl and allowed to drift about and 
 down — it will become thoroughly drenched. But 
 if it is placed properly and with due calculation, 
 it is as easily kept dry and floating as upon 
 any other part of the stream. The explana- 
 tion lies in the fact that the fly is not placed 
 directly upon the white water at all, if it be 
 properly placed, but is cast to either side of the 
 swift water, always on the side nearest the 
 angler first, who should pick out the smooth 
 looking spots upon which to place the fly. The 
 fish which the wet fly angler takes directly from 
 the centre of the current are taken on the dry 
 fly by being induced to move out of their posi- 
 tion. A very short line is used, and the fly is 
 floated but a foot or two, being dropped lightly 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 97 
 
 again and again. I will admit that trout are 
 not taken from the white water in this way by 
 the dry fly as frequently as they are with the 
 sunk fly, but when one is taken it is usually a 
 good fish. 
 
 On either side of the brink of the miniature 
 fall above the white water may be seen boul- 
 ders, seemingly acting as gatemen, directing the 
 running waters to pass between. The current 
 gliding swiftly toward them, deflected to right 
 and left, reminds one of a flock of sheep all trying 
 to get through a gap in the fence at the same 
 time, those caught against the edge of the open- 
 ing making little headway; and so it is with that 
 part of the current which spends most of its 
 force against the boulders. If this water be 
 examined it will be discovered that consider- 
 able dead or back water is formed under the 
 surface just above the boulders. Such places 
 are among the selected retreats of Salmo fario. 
 
 A fly floated down from a point two feet above 
 and retrieved just as it is about to go over the 
 fall may produce a very pretty picture for the 
 angler. If the fly upon its first appearance has 
 been seen by the trout, he is often induced to 
 rush at it, and, missing, goes headlong over the 
 fall, instinct telling him, perhaps, that he may 
 
98 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 find it below. Not to disappoint him, the angler 
 drops it immediately at the edge of the white 
 water, where it usually meets with a vicious 
 reception. Should all not come off as planned, 
 the fly may be cast again above the boulder and 
 retrieved as before. The fish may be tempted 
 to dart out and seize it after a dozen or more 
 casts. If hooked, he will come over the fall to 
 be dealt with in the smoother water below, and 
 the angler will not have missed the picture, 
 after all. 
 
 Native trout rarely occupy such positions, 
 but they should never be overlooked in streams 
 known to contain brown or rainbow trout. 
 
 Sometimes a short stretch of smooth, swift 
 water will be found sweeping silently along the 
 mossy bank just above the sentinel boulders at 
 the head of the white water. The bank is 
 probably shaded by overhanging rhododendron, 
 or alder growth, that lends to the water a pe- 
 culiar, greenish hue. This stretch may be oc- 
 cupied by fine fish that, because of some effect 
 of light or shade, seem better able to detect the 
 approach of an angler or the connection of the 
 leader with the fly than do fish in similar waters 
 unshaded. A longer line is necessary here, and 
 great care should be exercised to refrain, as far 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 99 
 
 as possible, from entering that arc of a circle 
 which is presumed to limit the range of the 
 trout's vision. Difficulty will also be experi- 
 enced in handling the line, owing to the greater 
 length used and the rapidity with which it will 
 be returned by the current. The danger of 
 scaring the fish is minimised if the fly be de- 
 livered from a point almost directly in line with 
 the current and the horizontal cast used. While 
 not always necessary, the horizontal cast is 
 better at all times, as the fly seems to cock more 
 readily when thrown from this angle. 
 
 As a stretch of this character is usually of uni- 
 form depth along the greater part of its length, 
 the fish may be in any part of it on a *' feeding'' 
 day — a day when those below seemed to have 
 been willing to feed. The fly should be placed at 
 the foot of the stretch and on the side nearest the 
 rod, and gradually worked, in the subsequent 
 casts, toward the centre and head. This must 
 be done slowly, however, and the fly should not 
 be retrieved until it has come down some dis- 
 tance and has passed the spot where the first 
 cast was delivered. The fish, in all probability, 
 will be found near the middle of the stretch 
 and to the side of the centre of the current 
 nearer the bank. No attempt should be made 
 
loo THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 to get closer, because the chance of having the 
 fish come to the fly is greater than that of his 
 taking, after the line has been seen. 
 
 When the prevailing conditions indicate that 
 the trout are not in the open — in other words, 
 are not fully engaged in feeding or in looking for 
 food — they will usually be found lying near the 
 bank. In such cases, the first attempt should 
 be made at the tail or down-stream end of the 
 swift, the fly being gradually worked up-stream 
 a foot or so at a time and about a foot from the 
 bank. It should be allowed to drift down to 
 the foot of the stretch each time, and the cast- 
 ing continued until the entire length of the bank 
 has been thoroughly searched. If the bank 
 should be of gravelly or earthy formation it 
 may be an overhanging one, having been under- 
 mined by the action of the current. The angler 
 may be certain that this is so if that part above 
 water shows a mass or network of bared roots. 
 In this case the same procedure is followed, 
 with the exception that the fly should be placed 
 two feet, or even more, from the edge of the 
 tangle, so that it may come the better within 
 the angle of the fish's vision. It is quite obvious 
 that a fly placed too close to the bank will be 
 unseen by a fish occupying the hollow under it. 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH loi 
 
 Great perseverance, even persistence, is required 
 to induce a fish to leave a retreat of this sort in 
 which he is snugly ensconced, but the attempt 
 should not be abandoned while it is certain 
 that no blunder has been made. Large trout 
 love these places, and coaxing one out is worth a 
 great deal of effort. 
 
 Long before a rise is effected, warning of the 
 possibility of its coming off is given by the 
 flash of a trout as he leaves his position under 
 the bank to assume another under the lane or 
 hatch of frauds. The trout is often a better 
 judge of distance than the angler, and when 
 this action of the fish is observed, any attempt 
 to make it easier for him by placing the fly 
 closer to the bank will, in all probability, put 
 a stop to further interest on his part. Diffi- 
 cult as it is to disobey the impulse to place the 
 fly where the fish was seen, it must be resisted, 
 because, while there is a possibility that the fish 
 may be risen, there is a greater likelihood that he 
 will be put down. For this reason the original 
 plan should be followed without deviation. 
 Ask him to come to the fly, and, while he may 
 seem diffident at first, he will finally accept the 
 invitation. 
 
 These swifts, or runs, as they are termed, 
 
I02 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 vary in length from fifteen to fifty feet, or more, 
 and the greater their length the more difficult 
 they are for the angler to cover without showing 
 himself. They are the narrows of the stream, 
 and, where the water is found to be of unvary- 
 ing depth, the fish may be looked for in any part 
 of them. The steady, rapid flow of the current 
 is admirably adapted to the use of the floating 
 fly, and is particularly attractive to those im- 
 patient ones who are unwilling to wait and 
 watch the fly's slow progress on the quieter 
 waters. Where the run being fished is dis- 
 tinctly "lumpy" — that is, where its speed is 
 greater because of the sharper incline in the 
 stream bed, and miniature waves are formed 
 that hurry down one after another — the floating 
 fly will be more difficult to handle, but is very 
 effective if well placed. 
 
 It was once my good fortune to see a stretch 
 of this character on the Neversink fished by a 
 friend, Mr. Walter McGuckin, who has been my 
 companion on many fishing excursions. He is 
 one of the best hands with a rod that I have 
 ever seen. His precision with the fly is remark- 
 able, and I doubt if the grace and ease with 
 which he handles his line can be excelled. His 
 skill is fortified with a knowledge of trout gained 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 103 
 
 by over thirty-five years* experience on the 
 waters of New York State. And, by the by, 
 although he has used the wet fly for the greater 
 portion of this time, he will now take his fish on 
 the dry fly or not at all. 
 
 The weather of four seasons had been crowded 
 into a single day — and this at the end of May. 
 Although no insects of any kind had been seen, 
 we had been able to mark a fish down the day 
 before, when he had shown himself for an in- 
 stant. Having fished the smooth water on 
 either side of the centre of the current with- 
 out engaging the fish's attention, my friend 
 decided to "ride his fly" on top of the waves in 
 the very swiftest part of the current. To do 
 this effectively, and without having too much 
 of the leader on the water, the chance of expos- 
 ing himself to the fish was taken, as the fly 
 had to be delivered from almost a right angle. 
 However, it all came off correctly, and the fly, 
 seeming barely to touch the water as it danced 
 along, appeared even more lifelike than a nat- 
 ural insect. So, too, it must have appeared to 
 the trout, for, after a number of casts had been 
 made, a fish leaped directly from one wave to 
 the one above, upon which was the fly, took it 
 with mouth wide open and dived under. He 
 
I04 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 was led gently to the still water below, and, 
 although he proved to be a fine brown trout, his 
 manner of taking the fly appealed to us more 
 than his quality, and he was returned to the 
 stream. The rise is the thing, and a dashing 
 one of this sort makes the blood quicken as 
 the dull chug of a fish taking under water 
 never can. 
 
 When a trout is taken on a floating fly from 
 beneath the tangled rubbish which collects 
 about the submerged roots of a fallen tree or 
 stump, the angler may attribute his success to 
 common sense and reason more than to his 
 dexterity in placing the fly. If we assume that 
 the fish is under the tangle, taking advantage 
 of the shade and protection it affords, is it log- 
 ical to expect him to worm his way up through 
 it to take a fly? And, as his head is invariably 
 pointed up-stream, is it at all likely that a fly 
 placed behind him will be observed.'' The an- 
 swer is obviously, no! When a trout occupies 
 a position of this character, it is always because 
 of its proximity to water which will permit 
 him the greatest freedom in securing food or in 
 escaping from danger. He is often unwilling, 
 and frequently unable, to dart rapidly down- 
 stream when moved by either of these considera- 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 105 
 
 tions, and the fly should be so presented that 
 it will ask nothing uncommon of him. 
 
 Many anglers fail to take fish from these justly 
 famed and wisely chosen domiciles of big trout, 
 because of their reluctance or inability to esti- 
 mate the odds on or against the sporting propo- 
 sition. They are not ready to risk a ten cent 
 fly for the purpose of properly fishing a spot 
 which has cost them a hundred times as much to 
 reach. With a few desultory casts — placed, usu- 
 ally, where they will do the least good and where, 
 perhaps, a dozen others have been placed be- 
 fore that same day, sometimes within the hour — 
 they move on. Congratulating themselves that 
 they are safely out of a tight place, or comfort- 
 ing themselves with the thought that if a trout 
 had been hooked it would have been lost any- 
 way in the tangled mass, they abandon the 
 spot — but always, I opine, with a lingering look 
 backward. That these promising but difficult 
 waters are prone to lure the angler into danger 
 of hanging up solidly should make them the 
 more interesting. When a good trout is taken 
 from them, it is usually by a master of the craft, 
 and no compassion need be wasted upon the 
 fish — it has fallen into good and deserving hands. 
 
 The common practice of careless anglers is to 
 
io6 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 place the fly as close to the root or snag as they 
 can, where there is but slight chance of its being 
 seen by the fish — at least while it is upon the 
 surface. Naturally, if the fly be sunk to a 
 depth which will bring it within the horizontal 
 plane of the fish's vision, it will be seen by him 
 more readily. But, in fishing the floating fly, 
 due allowance must be made for that portion 
 of an imaginary circle enclosing the base of an 
 inverted cone which will not come within view 
 of the fish at the apex. This part will be 
 directly over him, extending at an angle mea- 
 sured by the diameter of the root or snag under 
 which he is hiding, this snag and the bank nat- 
 urally being included in the calculation. To 
 reach a fish in this position, or rather to place 
 the fly so that it will be seen by him, an imagi- 
 nary semicircle should be drawn about the spot, 
 with a diameter equal to at least twice the known 
 diameter of the obstacle, and the fly fished on 
 this curved line until the circumference has been 
 covered. Unless the angler can determine ac- 
 curately the depth of the water or the submerged 
 portion of the log, root, or whatever the ob- 
 stacle may be, any allowance made over and 
 above what appears necessary from the calcu- 
 lation will be to his advantage. 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 107 
 
 The down-stream part of the imaginary semi- 
 circle will prove to be the least productive, for 
 the reason that it is difficult to interest a fish 
 from behind, he being more concerned about 
 happenings in front of him. Nevertheless, con- 
 siderable effort should be expended upon this 
 part of it, as there is always a possibility of the 
 fish being nearer the angler than has been cal- 
 culated. Having fished it thoroughly, the water 
 along the upper half of it may then be covered. 
 The edge of this segment of the semicircle should 
 be reached from a point nearly at right angles 
 to its tangent, the angler retiring and assuming 
 a position at a reasonable distance from the 
 point being assailed. The rise may be looked 
 for in that water where the swiftest part of 
 the current flows directly toward and against 
 the obstruction. And, as it is advantageous to 
 have the fly cover a great distance upon the 
 surface, it should be dropped a foot or two 
 farther up-stream from the snag than when cast- 
 ing to the side of it. If the flow against the 
 obstruction be studied there will be discovered 
 on the edge of the current nearest the angler a 
 spot whence the fly, being placed correctly, will 
 be carried down to the obstacle and around 
 it and will thus be exposed to the view of the 
 
io8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 trout without danger of drag or of "hanging 
 up." The fly alone must travel in this part of 
 the current, and the longer it travels in sight of 
 the fish the greater is the likelihood of interest- 
 ing him. Barring, always, the chance of error, 
 the probability of taking the fish increases 
 with each cast made. The situation confront- 
 ing the angler who fastens to a fish in this 
 water is a very trying one, and, if a fish so 
 hooked is to be saved for the creel, tender 
 methods will not avail. He must be uncere- 
 moniously bundled out and away from the dan- 
 gerous spot, with every turn and crook of which 
 he is familiar. 
 
 Aside from the fact that fishing well out from 
 an obstacle gives a fish beneath it a more cer- 
 tain chance of seeing the angler's fly, the method 
 has an additional advantage in that it lessens 
 the risk of "hanging up" on one of the early 
 casts — an accident that is very apt to cut short 
 the angler's attempt if he tries to deliver his fly 
 in places that are difficult to reach. But the 
 angler who is unwilling to chance the loss of a 
 fly by placing it close to a mass of drift or over- 
 hanging branches is not over-anxious to take 
 sizable fish, and his success is usually meagre 
 in proportion to the risk assumed. 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 109 
 
 Fishing the "edge of the circle" will fre- 
 quently be found to be more effective than the 
 accepted practice of searching the intricate 
 tangles and openings, and is advocated as sup- 
 plemental thereto. 
 
 A rift, properly speaking, is a shallow part 
 of the stream where the current is quite rapid 
 and more or less broken, and may be from ten 
 yards in length to a mile or more. Where such 
 water is spread from bank to bank and is very 
 shallow, with but slight change in depth, little 
 sport may be looked for. Random casts may 
 bring a fish or two, but it is difficult to determine 
 closely the positions in which trout may be; 
 and, even if it were always possible to deter- 
 mine their position, the size of the fish would 
 not induce the angler to waste much effort 
 upon them. A strong rift of fair depth, how- 
 ever, probably harbours as many trout and will 
 prove as productive to the average angler as 
 any half dozen selected pools. 
 
 The character of these rifts changes so fre- 
 quently that it would be useless to attempt to 
 describe where trout may be found in them when 
 the water is high. Furthermore, a cast here and 
 there is quite as likely to fall within sight of 
 roving fish that are not averse to travelling some 
 
no THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 distance to take the fly as a cast placed with 
 intent to cover a particular spot. The most 
 likely place, however, is along the side of the 
 centre of the heaviest current, the fly being so 
 placed that it will travel at the same speed as 
 the leader and line, or a trifle faster. 
 
 When the stream begins to fall, instinct warns 
 the trout that he must take up less unstable 
 quarters. He fixes upon a permanent home, and 
 only moves therefrom when there is another rise 
 in the stream or during his nocturnal roamings 
 in search of food. 
 
 In early spring, when the stream is high, 
 trout are roaming about and may be found 
 almost anywhere. When such conditions pre- 
 vail it is not uncommon to hear anglers say 
 that most of their fish were taken on the rifts. 
 There are times during this season when it is 
 more than likely that the rifts will be the only 
 stretches that prove fruitful. When such is 
 the case the angler, while he should never over- 
 look the pools, should spend most of his time 
 on the swift water. 
 
 On one occasion, while fishing a stream which 
 empties into the Delaware, near Narrowsburg, 
 N. Y., I walked two miles down-stream to 
 the stretch which I had chosen for my after- 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH in 
 
 noon's sport. My first cast was made close to 
 two o'clock, and at six o'clock I had taken over 
 twenty fish, four of which, weighing over five 
 and one half pounds, I killed, and twice as 
 many more of the same size I returned to the 
 stream. I got out of the stream about at the 
 same spot I had entered it, having fished not 
 over one hundred yards in four hours. The fish 
 were taken in a broken rift; it seemed as if each 
 rock in it was the hiding-place of a good one; 
 and, though the current was quite swift, the 
 floating fly was taken in each case slowly and 
 deliberately. They were, it is true, not so large 
 as one might have hoped to get in some of the 
 deeper pools, but fair fish, nevertheless; and, 
 as about half of them were rainbow trout, 
 interest in the sport did not flag for a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 In a short rift or run forming the connecting- 
 link between two pools, fish from both will be 
 found occupying it when feeding, occasionally 
 during the day, but usually at night, at which 
 time minnows and other small fish may be 
 picked up. Sometimes a good fish will remain 
 in this water, but, because of the facility af- 
 forded him for entering it from above or below, 
 this is not often the case. While this stretch is 
 
112 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 less fruitful than another which I will try to de- 
 scribe, it should never be carelessly fished; and, 
 if the instructions given in this chapter for fish- 
 ing the swift are followed, the effort should not 
 go unrewarded. Many of these short rifts are 
 met with in a day's fishing and too often are 
 slighted by those careless anglers who seem anx- 
 ious only to have their flies upon the surface 
 of pools. They should be given careful atten- 
 tion, let conditions be what they may. 
 
 There are other rifts where the current seems 
 to be travelling at its greatest speed and where 
 the fall is sharp and continuous. Where the de- 
 cline ends abruptly a pool is formed; where it 
 is gradual, and the force of the current is spent, 
 it spreads, fan-like, over the formation of gravel 
 and stones, finally flowing to one bank or the 
 other, forming another pool or another rift. 
 The fish occupying these longer rifts or rapids 
 may not be the largest in the stream, but are 
 likely to be well above the average in size and 
 worth trying for. Along both sides of the swift- 
 est part of the current the fly may be floated 
 successfully. A long line is inadvisable unless 
 the angler has mastered the difficulty of han- 
 dling it under such circumstances, because it is 
 returned very quickly. He should pick out the 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 113 
 
 "oily" looking spots upon which to place the 
 fly, because there is less likelihood of its being 
 drenched than if it is placed in the breaking 
 water. 
 
 Conforming to the custom among many 
 anglers, and for lack of a better term, I include 
 in the term "rifts" those parts of the stream 
 which, in my opinion, are the finest of all places 
 to fish. I refer to the stretches where great 
 boulders, and small ones too, protruding above 
 the surface of the water, divide the current, 
 which flows quietly but steadily between and 
 around them. 
 
 In many cases it will be found that the banks 
 on either side of such stretches, while not pre- 
 cipitous, are higher than where they border the 
 wider parts of the stream. The bed being nar- 
 rower, the depth of water will be found greater. 
 For these reasons such sections are chosen by 
 trout when the stream is low. The shady part 
 of this water, if there be any, should be 
 approached first, particularly if the weather be 
 bright and the water low. Each boulder, in 
 turn, should be carefully and thoroughly searched 
 with the fly. The first attempt may be made 
 between any two rocks, not too widely sepa- 
 rated, at the bottom or down-stream end of the 
 
114 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 stretch, the fly being placed directly between 
 and a foot above them. After several casts have 
 been made the fly may be thrown a foot or two 
 farther up-stream but in line with the previous 
 casts. 
 
 Fishing the fly between such boulders serves 
 a double purpose. As the fish lie alongside or 
 just above them, the fly is readily seen from 
 either position, and if it is taken near one of 
 them the angler is saved the necessity of fishing 
 the others, the indications being that the fish are 
 ready to feed and that they may be lured away 
 from their stands. On most occasions, however, 
 the fish will be found just above the boulder 
 and on the shady side, and the fly, persistently 
 delivered in that position, will attract many of 
 them. 
 
 The angler should remember that the back- 
 water formed by the current flowing against the 
 up-stream side of a boulder is a favourite haunt 
 of brown trout, and should assume that the fish 
 in the stretch occupy such positions until some 
 indication is given that they do not. He should 
 so present the fly that the fish is afforded a fair 
 view of it and is not asked to come too far to 
 take it. Rough water should be avoided when 
 possible; but the fly should be floated on or near 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 115 
 
 the swiftest part of the current, and this will usu- 
 ally be found close to the boulder. 
 
 When the boulders in a stretch are irregularly 
 scattered, the course of the current being de- 
 flected by them so that the water twists and 
 turns to escape the obstacles in its path, each 
 one may harbour a good fish. Not one of them 
 should escape the attention of the angler. Even 
 those which appear to be in shallow water are 
 worthy of consideration and sometimes yield 
 large fish. The eddies behind them may be 
 fished as much as he pleases, but he should not 
 forget that on the up-stream side the greater 
 number of fish will be found. He should avoid 
 haste, and also the conclusion that because a 
 fish is not risen in one spot there is none occu- 
 pying it. If, by carelessness, he drives out a 
 fish, his chance of taking one higher up in the 
 same stretch is jeopardised. 
 
 Where the current is direct in its flow, travel- 
 ling, apparently, through what might be called 
 a lane of boulders, the fish, if feeding, may be 
 looked for in its middle along its entire course, 
 as well as beside and above the rocks. Be- 
 ginning at the bottom, the water for a very 
 short distance may be covered from a point 
 directly below; but after that the casts should 
 
Ii6 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 be made at an angle of about forty-five degrees 
 from either side, so that the fish, which may have 
 been under the fly and have been unmoved by 
 it, will not see the angler or his line. A sight of 
 the line moves fish in a way that is very distress- 
 ing to the angler responsible for it. 
 
 Of similar character are those stretches where 
 the rapid current dashes against and around 
 the boulders in them. From a distance one of 
 these stretches appears to be a mass of tossing 
 water, where the dry fly might be expected to 
 be hopelessly out of place. In such parts of 
 the stream the fall is quite sharp, the water 
 tumbling over a succession of diminutive falls, 
 presenting, when viewed from below, an ap- 
 pearance of great turbulence. Upon close in- 
 spection, however, there will be found between 
 the boulders miniature pools, popularly called 
 "pockets," where the current, while strong, is 
 not direct, a great part of its force being spent 
 in seeking new channels. 
 
 Beginning at the bottom row of the pockets, 
 the tail of the lowest is cast over with as short 
 a line as may be used consistently with pre- 
 cision. Where the water glides swiftly over the 
 lip of the pocket the fly should be placed above 
 and in such position that in its course down- 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 117 
 
 Stream it will pass close to the boulder which is 
 deflecting the deeper and stronger part of the cur- 
 rent. As the fly passes the boulder it should be 
 lifted quickly but quietly from the water. A false 
 cast or two should be made to dry it, and then 
 it should be placed in exactly the same position 
 as before, this procedure being continued until 
 a rise is effected or the angler is prompted to 
 abandon the spot. The fly may then be ad- 
 vanced a short distance at a time, the longi- 
 tudinal position remaining the same, until the 
 water in a straight line up-stream between the 
 boulder and the head of the pocket is covered. 
 The other side should then be fished in the same 
 manner, and this without the angler having 
 changed his own position, which should have 
 been assumed at the start with reference to the 
 availability of all parts of the water. 
 
 Each pocket will present practically the same 
 features. The depth may be greater in one, the 
 current stronger in another, but the boulders 
 at the head and tail should be the objective 
 points for the angler's fly in every case. Where 
 the depth is great or the current strong, more 
 persistence upon the part of the angler is de- 
 manded — compensated, as a rule, by a larger 
 fish. Where the water, with but a gentle wrin- 
 
ii8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 kle, slips by the boulder and does not break 
 into a fall, the fly should be placed a yard above 
 and directly in front of the boulder, and should 
 not be retrieved until it has passed some distance 
 down-stream. A fish in the dead water may 
 often be tempted to come down after the fly, and 
 when this happens the whole scene is enacted in 
 plain view. There is nothing quite so exciting 
 as this in the whole sport of angling except, per- 
 haps, casting to and inducing a fish to rise that 
 is lying in plain view. 
 
 Trout frequently take up stations in the back- 
 water or eddy which is formed under and behind 
 the miniature falls in these rapid stretches. 
 When in this position they are inaccessible to 
 the dry fly angler. They belong entirely to the 
 wet fly man who is familiar enough with the 
 habits of the fish to drop his fly above the brink 
 of the fall, allowing it to be carried over and 
 then under the water, so that, if it is caught in 
 the backwater, it is presented directly to the 
 fish, which rarely refuses to take one that comes 
 so easily. When evening comes on, however, 
 the dry fly angler has his opportunity. The 
 sizable fish which select these retreats during 
 the bright days drop down-stream as darkness 
 approaches, and, if not cruising, will be found 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 119 
 
 just where the current spends itself, or under 
 and below the little eddies to the side. These 
 eddies should be scrutinised closely if insects 
 are upon the water. The presence of the fish 
 will be indicated by the rise to the flies which 
 collect there. Should there be no insects about, 
 the fish may be induced to rise by casting re- 
 peatedly in the quieting water. 
 
 Perhaps no water on our American streams 
 appeals more to the average angler than a beau- 
 tiful pool; and yet rarely does this water fulfil 
 the promise it seems to hold out. That pools 
 do contain trout, and sometimes very large 
 ones, is true; but the fact that the fish may re- 
 main unmoved, after every artifice of the angler 
 has been exhausted in an attempt to induce them 
 to rise, is very discouraging. This not unusual 
 experience may be the foundation for the belief 
 many anglers have that the larger fish have 
 ceased to be surface feeders and cannot be 
 persuaded to rise to a small insect. To get 
 one of these big fish with the floating fly the 
 angler must have "luck"— that luck which 
 brings him upon the stream when the fish are 
 near the surface. Success on waters of this kind 
 depends quite as much upon the mood of the 
 fish as upon the skill of the angler. 
 
I20 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 If the fish are feeding, or are ready to feed, 
 upon winged insects, they will be found in a posi- 
 tion from which the angler's fly may be seen, in 
 which event he may hope to bring them to the 
 artificial. But no amount of skill will induce a 
 rise if the fish are hidden in the strongholds with 
 which these rocky pools abound. It is absurd 
 to expect that a big fish, lying near the bottom 
 of a pool which may have six or eight feet of 
 water in it, will come that distance upon the 
 first appearance of a tiny morsel of food upon 
 the surface. A fish that has retired to deep 
 water is not interested in food; or, if he is, only 
 caddis larvae, dobsons, etc., that may be picked 
 up on the bottom, or some other sort of food 
 considerably under the surface, will attract his 
 attention. 
 
 Trout fortunate enough to escape the many 
 dangers which beset them in our streams grow 
 to great size and become largely nocturnal 
 feeders. Night "feeding is an instinct of the fish, 
 though the smaller ones are forced by the ap- 
 petite of youth to seek food in daylight, also. 
 This is why a pool that looks as if it should 
 contain a big fish (and probably does) yields 
 but a few dandiprats when the condition of the 
 water has been unchanged for any length of 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 121 
 
 time. The big fish are not ravenous enough 
 to be seeking food all of the time, and the little 
 chaps have undisputed possession of the open 
 water. A wonderful change in the mood of 
 these large fish takes place when the stream 
 is freshened after a fall of rain. The artificial 
 fly is then taken in the most deliberate and cer- 
 tain manner — taken by the fish as if they knew 
 it as a member of a family with which they have 
 been acquainted all their lives, although it may 
 not bear the slightest resemblance to any living 
 insect. At such times the angler is apt to lose 
 faith in the much-vaunted wariness and cunning 
 of the fish and may foolishly ascribe his remark- 
 able success to his own skill. Whether the 
 change of water invigorates trout, or Instinct 
 tells them that they may expect food to be 
 washed down to them, it is certain that the de- 
 sire to feed is aroused, and they are at these 
 times neither fastidious nor discriminating. 
 
 Several years ago on a stream in Sullivan 
 County, the name of which I have promised to 
 forget, I was in the brook just after the top of a 
 flood and found the fish so willing that, for the 
 particular day, at any rate, I was ready to believe 
 the story told of some northern waters where 
 the fish "were so numerous and so hungry that 
 
122 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 one had to hide behind a tree to bait the hook." 
 Nearly every cast brought a slow, deliberate, 
 businesslike rise — all large fish for so small a 
 stream. I killed two fish that weighed one 
 pound five ounces, and one pound nine ounces, 
 respectively. One of these fish had two crawfish 
 in its stomach, freshly taken; the other had a 
 small stone catfish, pretty well digested; there 
 was nothing else in either — not an insect of any 
 sort. The next day was practically a repetition 
 of the previous one — two fish killed, both just 
 over one pound five ounces. The stomach and 
 gullet of one were absolutely empty; the other 
 contained a single June-bug, freshly taken, and, 
 among a number of other insects, a water- 
 strider, long thought by anglers to form no part 
 of the trout's menu. I have never been able 
 to quite satisfy myself that this particular ex- 
 perience was of any great value except that it 
 strengthened my belief that trout are moved to 
 feed by changes in the stream caused by flood 
 waters running down. Perhaps, also, it tended 
 to prove that there were more big fish in the 
 stream than I would have believed without the 
 experience. All my fish were taken at the lips 
 of the pools which abound in this rock-bedded 
 stream, and I devoted my time exclusively to 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 123 
 
 those places, in the hope of securing a really 
 good fish. No small fish rose to the fly, although 
 they are a-plenty in the stream. They had 
 evidently been driven to other water by fear of 
 their older brothers. 
 
 The greatest essential to success in fly fishing, 
 wet or dry, is stream knowledge; by which I 
 mean, not necessarily familiarity with the stream 
 actually being fished, but that general knowl- 
 edge, based on careful study of the habits of 
 the fish, that enables the angler to select the 
 proper part of the current in which to place 
 the fly. Such selection is of the greatest im- 
 portance when pools are being fished — it is next 
 in importance to keeping out of sight of the 
 trout. Under no circumstances should a pool 
 be approached with the idea of placing the first 
 cast in what appears to be the likeliest spot, as 
 there is always danger of frightening the fish 
 off if he should happen to be somewhere else in 
 the pool. Before a fly is placed on the water, a 
 careful study should be made of its depths and 
 currents. If the large fish are surface feeding, 
 they may be looked for in two places par- 
 ticularly: at the very lip of the pool or in the 
 eddies at the head. 
 
 The indication that a fish is feeding at the lip 
 
124 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 or bottom of a pool is unmistakable. While the 
 actual taking of the insect may be accomplished 
 quietly, the fish lies sometimes so close to the 
 surface where the water spills out that the 
 sharp recovery necessary in the quickening 
 water reveals his position. This is a difficult 
 fish to take, for the reason that, lying as he 
 does in the shallower water — which, as a rule, 
 has a smooth surface — he is very apt to see the 
 angler. A long line must be used, which adds 
 to the difficulty, as it is almost impossible to 
 keep the line out of the swift water below the 
 lip which snatches the fly away from the fish 
 before he has even had a good look at it. A 
 proper presentation may be made, however, and 
 this annoying drag avoided, if the cast is so de- 
 livered that the line falls upon one of the stones 
 or boulders which form the lip of the pool. The 
 fly will then float naturally, without being pulled, 
 until it reaches the point where the water spills 
 out, which point it must be allowed to pass 
 before being retrieved. If no rise is effected 
 the cast may be repeated, and continued as long 
 as the fish is still in position. No connection 
 need be looked for, however, unless the fly is 
 placed fairly close to and above the fish, and 
 marked acceleration of pace avoided. Where 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 125 
 
 there are no kindly boulders to help the angler 
 in his deception, a chance — though a remote 
 one — may be taken by presenting the fly in the 
 hope that it may be taken at once, because of 
 its accurate delivery, and before there is any 
 drag upon it. 
 
 If, at the moment of the angler's arrival at a 
 pool, there are no insects upon the water there 
 will be no rise to indicate the position of a fish. 
 But it does not follow that one is not in position 
 and ready to feed. In this case even greater 
 care should be exercised in approaching the 
 lip of the pool than if a rise had been actually 
 observed. If the angler does his work well, and 
 has a sharp eye, the fish may often be seen lying 
 along the side of the current as the water spills 
 out, or just above some small boulder or other 
 obstruction to the water's course. Sometimes 
 the boulders may be completely under water, 
 but their presence is denoted by a wrinkling of 
 the surface, and the fish may be looked for just 
 above them. 
 
 The angler must work out the problem of 
 properly presenting the fly at each pool. In 
 no case, however, where the fish is seen or his 
 position is indicated by his activities should 
 the fly be cast directly over him. It should 
 
126 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 always be cast to one side or the other, slightly 
 above, and at an angle. This suggestion may 
 be safely followed in every case where fish are 
 seen and it is possible to so cast from the posi- 
 tion occupied by the angler. When the fish are 
 found to be occupying positions at the tail of 
 pools — whether it be early morning, or just at 
 dusk, or, as it sometimes happens, at midday — 
 they are almost invariably ready to feed; and, 
 while not always interested in insects, they are 
 frequently induced to take the artificial because 
 it appears close to them. Though there may 
 have been no indication that the large fish have 
 dropped back from the deeper water to the lip 
 of the pool, the angler's actions should always 
 be governed by the assumption that they are in 
 that position until he is convinced that they are 
 not. If he has been incautious the widening 
 wake marking the fish's swift dart up-stream 
 makes it quite certain that the hope of taking 
 a trout from that particular pool must be de- 
 ferred. Small fish occupying this "tail posi- 
 tion" are as easily frightened off by sight of 
 the angler as the large ones are, and their 
 alarm, being communicated to the fish above, 
 destroys whatever chance there might other- 
 wise have been on the upper water. It is the 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 127 
 
 carelessness with which the average angler over- 
 looks this important part of the pool that is re- 
 sponsible for the many failures registered on 
 what should be productive water. 
 
 It frequently happens, particularly when the 
 water is low and bright and has not been re- 
 cently disturbed, that trout are lying a few 
 yards above the lip of the pool in the quiet 
 water. The presence of the fish is disclosed by 
 the wake made by him in his rush for a fly that 
 has been presented somewhere near him. The 
 direction the fish is taking is easily discernible, 
 and, if he is headed down-stream — ^which is 
 often the case — the situation is one that requires 
 the gentlest possible handling. The angler 
 should remain motionless, leaving his fly upon 
 the water even at the risk of having the line 
 become entangled about his feet, because the 
 fish, being headed in the angler's direction, will 
 be quick to detect any motion; and the rod 
 should not be moved under any consideration. 
 The fish, after having composed himself, will 
 be headed up-stream again and, if not actually 
 seen by the angler, may be assumed to be where 
 the wake ended. 
 
 It is quite usual for a fish, after having made 
 a rush toward the fly, to abandon the chase 
 
128 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 when the fly approaches too closely to the spill, 
 to assume a position where he stopped, and to 
 wait there for another insect to come down. 
 This is the angler's opportunity; but if it is 
 to be of any advantage to him deliberation 
 must mark his every action. The fly must 
 be dropped gently over the marked spot and 
 should not be retrieved until it has passed be- 
 low the rod. It will be difficult to overcome 
 the impulse to retrieve the fly, even though it 
 is getting farther beyond control all the time; 
 but, as the fish has possibly been interested in 
 it and, having turned, will immediately detect 
 any action of the rod and be off at once, such 
 impulse must be resisted. By stripping the 
 line in with the disengaged hand, the fly may be 
 recovered and presented again. Until the fly is 
 taken by the fish, or until the angler is con- 
 vinced that it will not be taken, every motion 
 should be very deliberate. If the fish is not 
 risen on the first cast, each succeeding throw 
 should be made a little farther up-stream than 
 the previous one, until the point where the fish 
 was first seen is reached. The fly should not be 
 retrieved in any case until it has passed over 
 the water covered before — and it should travel 
 in the same lane after each cast. A fish spotted 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 129 
 
 as described will surely fall to the rod if the 
 angler is careful, and his taking will afford some 
 of the most pleasurable moments spent upon the 
 stream. 
 
 When the angler decides to abandon the lower 
 end of the pool, it is much wiser for him to use 
 a longer line to reach the upper water than it 
 is to advance up-stream, because by wading up 
 he may frighten a fish lying in the part of the 
 pool already covered and thus warn off the 
 ones above. The entire pool should be care- 
 fully scanned for indications of feeding fish 
 before any attempt is made to cast over the 
 upper part of it. The eddies on either side of 
 the main current at the head of the pool should 
 be given particular attention. Should a large 
 fish inhabit the pool the eddy will be his 
 dining-room. He will occupy it, however, only 
 at certain intervals, and, if the angler should 
 be fortunate enough to arrive at a time when 
 he is seeking food, it ought to yield a fine 
 trout. Rarely meeting competition because of 
 their size, the fish in these eddies are very de- 
 liberate in their feeding — securing such insects 
 as may be on the surface with but little effort. 
 For this reason many opportunities are missed 
 by the unobservant angler who fails to notice 
 
I30 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 the gentle wrinkling of the surface, or the small 
 bubble left upon it, as the fish sucks in some 
 tiny insect, and by the careless angler who sees 
 the slight disturbance, and attributes it to a 
 small fish. Some of the largest fish I have ever 
 killed gave no indication of their size as the fly 
 was taken, and not until they had fastened did I 
 realise how heavy they were. The slightest in- 
 dication of action in the eddy should be inves- 
 tigated thoroughly with the fly; for, while only 
 a small fish may be taken in one, the next may 
 produce "the big fish." 
 
 Throwing to a fish in the eddy of a pool re- 
 quires some care, but a close study of the cur- 
 rents will make it comparatively easy. Trout 
 always lie with heads to the current, and those 
 in an eddy are no exception; consequently, they 
 will be headed down-streamy or against the cur- 
 rent, which is flowing up. This position of the 
 fish must be taken into consideration when the 
 fly is to be presented from below, and the 
 angler will find that his greatest difficulty will 
 be in keeping out of sight. How he may do 
 this he must decide for himself, but, even at 
 the risk of being seen, he should cast up-stream 
 from directly below the fish; i. e., from a position 
 on the same side of the swift current as the eddy 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 131 
 
 he is fishing. If the fly is dropped in that part 
 of the current which is turning up-stream it 
 will be carried to the fish in a natural manner, 
 and if care has been taken in placing the line 
 loosely in the comparatively dead water below, 
 the progress of the fly will not be impeded. If 
 the fish has been well spotted, the fly should be 
 dropped a foot or two below him, and always 
 in that current which will bring it directly to 
 him. In this particular situation the first cast 
 should be the telling one, because if the fly is 
 not taken it is not returned to the angler im- 
 mediately, and its retrieve against the current 
 is likely to be disturbing to the fish. If the fly 
 has been carried over and beyond the spot 
 where the rise was seen, it does not follow that 
 it has passed over the fish and been refused. 
 He may be backing up under it, and may take 
 it a yard from where he is presumed to be, if it 
 travel that far. However, if satisfied that the 
 fly is not going to appeal to the fish — which con- 
 clusion should not be reached until the fly is no 
 longer in a natural position — the retrieve may 
 be made very slowly and carefully, after which 
 the angler may wait a minute or two, or until 
 the fish rises again. 
 
 Sometimes the fly will be carried by the eddy 
 
132 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 toward the swift, down-stream current and be 
 caught in it. In this event, it is easily retrieved 
 without disturbing the water in the vicinity of 
 the fish, and may be presented again immediately. 
 A fish should not be given up while continuing 
 to rise steadily; he will become accustomed to the 
 artificial, and will take it in time, if its action is 
 not unnatural. An eddy should be fished in the 
 same careful manner whether a fish is seen feed- 
 ing in it or not; but, in the latter case, while a 
 fish may be in position and ready to feed, the 
 varying currents and the difficulty encountered 
 in attempting to retrieve the fly delicately 
 against them destroy its natural action, and 
 prevent, to a certain extent, proper simulation 
 of a ** hatch." The fly can cover but a short 
 distance before it is necessary to retrieve it, and 
 this makes for rather tedious work, because it 
 must be brought back slowly and gently until 
 it is out of the eddy before it is taken from the 
 water. In this connection, it may be borne in 
 mind that it is possible to decoy a fish from the 
 eddy by placing the fly on the edge of the swift, 
 down-stream current nearest the eddy, permit- 
 ting it to float down three or four yards each 
 time. If a half dozen casts have brought no re- 
 sponse, it is better to discontinue casting than 
 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 133 
 
 to risk driving the fish to another part of the 
 pool, and thus disturb some other fish that might 
 have fallen to the rod later had it remained 
 unmolested. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 
 
 Within a very recent period, it has been as- 
 serted, upon scientific authority, that fish are 
 colour-bKnd. If this be true, though it is diffi- 
 cult for the mere angler to understand how it 
 may be proven, the theory of those who believe 
 that it is necessary to imitate in the artificial 
 fly the colour of the insects upon which trout 
 feed must be abandoned. 
 
 Writing upon the subject no longer ago than 
 1904, Sir Herbert Maxwell, certainly a compe- 
 tent observer, said: "My own experience goes 
 to convince me that salmon, and even highly 
 educated chalk-stream trout, are singularly in- 
 different to the colours of flies offered to them, 
 taking a scarlet or blue fly as readily as one 
 closely assimilated to the natural insect. Prob- 
 ably the position of the floating lure, between 
 the fish's eye and the light, interferes with any 
 nice discrimination of hue from reflected rays." 
 
 Cotton and the many angling writers who fol- 
 lowed him all dwelt with insistence upon the ne- 
 
 134 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 135 
 
 cessity for close imitation, especially in relation to 
 colour. In 1740 John Williamson stated the prin- 
 ciple in the following words: "... as the great 
 Difficulty is to obtain the Colour of the Fly which 
 the Fish take at the Instant of your Angling, it is 
 impossible to give any certain Directions on that 
 Head; because several Rivers and Soils are 
 haunted by peculiar Sorts of Flies, and the Flies 
 that come usually in such a Month of the Year, 
 may the succeeding Year come almost a Month 
 sooner or later as the Season proves colder or hot- 
 ter. Tho' some Fish change their Fly once or 
 twice in one Day, yet usually they seek not for an- 
 other Sort, till they have for some Days glutted 
 themselves with a former, which is commonly 
 when those Flies are near Death, or ready to go 
 out." Then, giving some simple instructions 
 in regard to tying flies, he quotes Walton: 
 "But to see a Fly made by an Artist is the best 
 Instruction; after which the Angler may walk 
 by the River, and mark what Flies fall on the 
 Water that Day, and catch one of them, if he 
 see the Trouts leap at a Fly of that Kind. ..." 
 Williamson's book was practically a compila- 
 tion, containing the best of what had been writ- 
 ten by anglers before him, together with his own 
 observations. 
 
136 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 From Williamson's time no work on fly fish- 
 ing seemed complete unless instructions were 
 given in the art of fly making, with a description 
 of the sorts and colours of furs, silks, feathers, 
 etc., suitable for the imitation of the natural 
 insects held to be so necessary; but until the 
 appearance in 1836 of Ronalds's "Fly Fishers' 
 Entomology," it cannot be said of any author 
 that the instructions given by him were the re- 
 sult of scientific study. Ronalds was most 
 thorough in his investigation, and his experi- 
 ments in regard to the senses of taste and hear- 
 ing of trout are extremely interesting and in- 
 structive. While his conclusions run counter to 
 the opinions of many other angling writers, to 
 my mind they appear logical and are con- 
 vincing; and I think he proves that trout do 
 not have the senses of taste and hearing de- 
 veloped to the degree of acuteness attributed to 
 them by other writers. Following some advice 
 as to the choice of flies, Ronalds says : " It should 
 never be forgotten that, let the state of weather 
 or the water be what it may, success in fly 
 fishing very much depends upon showing the 
 fish a good imitation, both in colour and size, 
 of that insect which he has recently taken; an 
 exact resemblance of the shape does not seem to 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 137 
 
 be quite as essential a requisite as that of colour, 
 since the former varies according to the position 
 of the insect either in or upon the water; but 
 a small fly is usually employed when the water is 
 fine, because the fish is then better enabled to 
 detect an imitation and because the small fly 
 is more easily imitated. The resemblance of 
 each particular colour, etc., is not required to 
 be so exact as in the case of a large fly." Not- 
 withstanding his evident preference for colour 
 over shape or form, Ronalds was careful to 
 have the proportions of his imitations exact. 
 The many editions of his work that have been 
 issued, and the frequent reference made to him 
 by later writers, is evidence that his opinions are 
 held in high regard by anglers. 
 
 About three years before the "Fly Fishers' 
 Entomology" appeared. Professor James Ren- 
 nie, in his "Alphabet of Scientific Angling," 
 ridiculed the theory of imitation. He says: "It 
 is still more common, however, for anglers to 
 use artificial baits, made in imitation or pre- 
 tended imitation, of those that are natural. I 
 have used the phrase 'pretended imitation' as 
 strictly applicable to by far the greater number 
 of what are called by anglers artificial flies, 
 because these rarely indeed bear the most dis- 
 
 I* ^ 
 
138 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 tant resemblance to any living fly or insect what- 
 ever, though, if exact imitation were an object, 
 there can be little doubt that it could be ac- 
 complished much more perfectly than is ever 
 done in any of the numerous artificial flies 
 made by the best artists in that line of work. 
 The fish, indeed, appear to seize an artificial fly 
 because, when drawn by the angler along the 
 water, it has the appearance of being a living 
 insect, whose species is quite unimportant, as all 
 insects are equally welcome, though the larger 
 they are, as in the case of grasshoppers, so much 
 the better, because they then furnish a better 
 mouthful. The aim of the angler, accordingly, 
 ought to be to have his artificial fly calculated, 
 by its form and colours, to attract the notice of 
 the fish, in which case he has a much greater 
 chance of success than by making the greatest 
 efforts to imitate any particular species of fly." 
 That this statement caused considerable dis- 
 cussion — probably because it was made by a 
 professor of zoology — is evidenced by the ap- 
 pearance in 1838 of "A True Treatise of the Art 
 of Fly-Fishing," written by those strong advo- 
 cates of the imitation theory, William Shipley 
 and Edward Fitzgibbon, who devoted a whole 
 chapter to controverting the professor's theories, 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 139 
 
 calling upon the writings of Bainbridge, Best, 
 Taylor, Davy, Ronalds, and others in support 
 of their opinions, concluding with the state- 
 ment that "they flattered themselves that they 
 had triumphantly done so." It seems to me 
 that, though they argued with vigour and 
 vehemence, they have proven nothing, conclu- 
 sively, except their ability to place a construction 
 upon the professor's statements that afforded 
 them an opportunity for the discussion. A care- 
 ful reading of Rennie shows that he merely ex- 
 pressed the opinion that the greatest efforts of 
 the angler should be to make his fly one that 
 would attract the notice of the fish by its form 
 and colour, rather than to imitate any particular 
 species of fly. To be sure, we have no knowledge 
 of what his ideas with regard to form and colour 
 were; we may assume, however, that he believed 
 that if a red fly four inches long with yellow and 
 blue wings and a green tail would attract the fish, 
 such would be the fly to use. The illustration is 
 absurd, of course; but we have a right to infer 
 that his belief was that any form or colour which 
 would attract the fish would do. He advanced 
 the theory that the trout took the artificial be- 
 cause they were near-sighted; apparently he 
 did not believe that they took it because they 
 were colour-blind. 
 
I40 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 The English creation known as the "Alex- 
 andra," representing absolutely nothing in in- 
 sect life (at least to eye of man), strongly sup- 
 ports Professor Rennie's theory. Its effect upon 
 trout has been so deadly that it has been sug- 
 gested by many English anglers that its use 
 should be barred upon some streams. In the 
 same class with the Alexandra might be placed 
 our own American nondescript, the "Parma- 
 cheene Belle," the invention of Mr. Henry P. 
 Wells, whose theory was, "An imitation of some 
 favourite food is in itself sufficient under all cir- 
 cumstances, provided it is so conspicuous as 
 readily to be seen . . . and the fly in question 
 was made, imitating the colour of the belly fin 
 of the trout itself." This theory may be sound 
 enough, but in this particular application of it 
 one is asked to believe that the trout is inor- 
 dinately fond of the belly fin of its relatives, 
 which seems to me to be straining credulity 
 overfar. To some old cannibalistic fish these 
 fins may be attractive. I do not deny it, for I 
 do not know; but in my own experience I have 
 not known them to be plucked or bitten from 
 the victim; nor are they found floating about 
 loosely. The Parmacheene Belle is undoubtedly 
 an imitation of the belly fin of a trout, but it is 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 141 
 
 not an imitation of any favourite food of the 
 fish. Its value as a lure is well known to those 
 who fish in the lakes and streams of Canada and 
 Maine, but trout do not take it because they 
 recognise it as a familiar article of diet. They 
 probably take it because of its brilliant colour, 
 in which respect it embodies Professor Rennie's 
 idea of what a "fly" should be. Being made up 
 of reds and whites, it probably reflects more 
 light than do sombre-hued patterns and, conse- 
 quently, is the more easily seen. As a rule, it 
 is taken under water, and most often after it 
 has sunk to considerable depth. 
 
 Speaking of the Alexandra, Mr. Halford says : 
 "It certainly is not the imitation of any in- 
 digenous insect known to entomologists; pos- 
 sibly the bright silver body moving through the 
 river gives some idea of the gleam of a minnow. 
 Long ere this its use should have been prohib- 
 ited on every stream frequented by the bona- 
 fide fly-fisherman, as it is a dreadful scourge 
 to any water, scratching and frightening an im- 
 mense proportion of the trout which are tempted 
 to follow it." If this means anything, it means 
 that trout are at first attracted by the fly or 
 lure, but upon closer inspection discover the 
 cheat, and, taking it uncertainly, are often 
 
142 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 slightly pricked, or, refusing it entirely, are 
 sometimes scraped by the hook as they turn 
 away. This criticism, it seems to me, might be 
 directed equally well against any creation of 
 feathers, fur, and tinsel that is fished sunk. 
 
 While rather off the main point, I may be so 
 bold as to say that, while the sunk fly method 
 does not appeal to me at all, I cannot readily see 
 that it scratches many fish or frightens them 
 in any way; and, if it did, the recollection of the 
 affair would not linger long enough in the trout's 
 memory to injure the chances of his being taken 
 the next day on a dry fly, or even on another 
 sunk one. Mr. G. E. M. Skues, who advocates 
 the use of the sunk fly on the same streams 
 where correct imitations are presented to rising 
 fish, says that he presents imitations of the 
 nymphae in the positions occupied by the nat- 
 urals; that he rarely scratches a fish, and hooks 
 but very few foul. The inference in this case 
 might be that the trout fastens to an imitation 
 more readily than to an Alexandra — one really 
 deluding the fish by its natural appearance, the 
 other exciting only its curiosity or ire. 
 
 While exhibiting an admirable filial loyalty, 
 many of us have been prone to be governed 
 by tradition, and the education we received in 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 143 
 
 the beginning from our fathers. With few ex- 
 ceptions, we have trudged along the beaten 
 path, looking rarely to right or left, but back- 
 ward a great deal, using the same flies our 
 fathers used before us, emulating their methods, 
 and admiring their successes. We have over- 
 looked the fact that we are contending with 
 conditions that have decreased the number of 
 native trout, and that would have taxed even 
 the great skill with which we have endowed 
 those of loving memory. I remember that one 
 of my father's favourite flies was the Queen-of- 
 the- Waters. Naturally it became one of mine, 
 and I used it religiously — remembering its suc- 
 cesses, forgetting its failures. A story connected 
 with this fly may prove interesting, and perhaps 
 tend to show how close I was to becoming a 
 confirmed colourist, or, rather, a strong believer 
 in the trout's ability to detect colour. 
 
 Many years ago, while preparing for a short 
 trip to the stream, I discovered that I did not 
 have a single Queen-of-the-Waters in my fly 
 book. On my way to the railroad station I 
 stopped in a tackle shop and asked for a dozen 
 of that pattern. The clerk was unable to find 
 any in stock, but suggested that I try a dozen 
 called King-of-the- Waters. Although there was. 
 
144 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 in fact, little similarity between these two pat- 
 terns except in the name itself, this seemed 
 sufficient to my ignorant mind, and I took them. 
 The following day, upon the stream, my cast of 
 three flies (I was a wet fly angler then) was 
 never without a King-of-the- Waters — and not a 
 fish did I take with it. I attributed my non- 
 success to the pattern of fly, and it never oc- 
 curred to me at the time that very few fish were 
 taken at all that day, although many anglers 
 were on the stream. The next morning, when I 
 opened my fly book, I found that a great deal 
 of the red dye used upon the silk body of the 
 fly had come off on the drying pad. The body 
 of the fly was now a beautiful pink. Out of 
 curiosity I wet the fly, and the pink body 
 turned a brilliant red. I thought the thing 
 over, and decided that I had stumbled upon an 
 explanation of the failure of the fly to take the 
 day before. The body of the fly originally was 
 red and was evidently meant to appear so to 
 the trout. When wet, however, it had turned a 
 muddy brown. With most of the colour washed 
 out, the fly turned a darker shade when wet, 
 became really red, and stayed red. I deter- 
 mined that if this was the colour the trout 
 wanted, they should have it, and I soaked a half 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 145 
 
 dozen flies in a tumbler of water, pressing and 
 squeezing every bit of dyestuff out of them that 
 I could. They were all pink-bodied when I had 
 finished with them. Recollections of the fol- 
 lowing day are still fresh in my mind. The fish 
 seemed frantic to get my fly. I used one as 
 the stretcher, and it was taken almost to the 
 utter exclusion of the other patterns above. I 
 remember that, while sitting upon a boulder in 
 midstream tying another pink fly on in place of 
 the hand dropper, as an experiment, I lost it in 
 the swift current, and felt almost as badly as 
 if I had lost a friend. The fly used as a dropper 
 was taken readily, but not so often as when 
 used as a stretcher, yet often enough to make me 
 feel that I had made a great discovery. Since 
 then, however, I have often wondered if it 
 really were a discovery, or if, indeed, the old 
 Queen-of-the-Waters, under the circumstances 
 and conditions prevailing at the time, would not 
 have been just as killing, and probably just as 
 great a failure the preceding day. 
 
 Many years have passed, and I am still using 
 the pink-bodied fly, modified in form, however, 
 but never the Queen-of-the-Waters. I cannot 
 say that I think it takes any better than the 
 Whirling Dun or the Pale Evening Dun, which 
 
146 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 are among my favourites. Frequently, when I 
 have found the pink-bodied fly taking well, I 
 have changed immediately to one of the others, 
 and have found no marked difference in their 
 taking qualities. The pink-bodied fly in its 
 present form — that is, tied in accordance with 
 my own practice — has upright wings and a tail, 
 and in appearance is not unlike the Red Spinner. 
 It has been dubbed the "Pink Lady" by one of 
 my friends, a name that it seems destined to 
 carry, as it has already appeared by that name 
 in a tackle dealer's catalogue. As to whether 
 or not the trout is attracted by the brilliancy 
 of the body, or by the rib of gold tinsel that 
 gives it a fillip other flies lack, or because it 
 bears a fairly close resemblance to the Red 
 Spinner, I cannot venture an opinion. That it 
 is a taking fly, however, I have demonstrated 
 many times upon the stream. I am inclined to 
 believe that its typical form, rather than its 
 colour, appeals to the fish. Opposed to my opin- 
 ion, however, is that of many of my friends who 
 use it, one of whom, in particular, contending 
 that the pink-bodied fly will take fish any- 
 where at any time. He firmly believes that its 
 colour constitutes its charm. It is an interest- 
 ing fact, considered in this connection, that the 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 147 
 
 gentleman himself is, to some extent, colour- 
 blind. 
 
 Objects floating upon the surface of a shallow 
 stream reflect the colour of the bottom in vary- 
 ing degree, according to their density. A number 
 of white objects floating above a moss or grass 
 covered bottom reflect different tones of green, 
 that one which is most opaque showing the 
 darkest shade, and each one reflecting a lighter 
 tone in proportion to the amount of light that 
 filters through it. It is true, of course, that a 
 yellow insect floating over this same bottom 
 would reflect a shade of green all its own, and 
 it is but natural to assume that if the same shade 
 or tint of yellow is used in the artificial, its em- 
 ployment would more nearly approximate the 
 effect of reflection upon the natural insect; but 
 if the exact shade or tint is important, the 
 effect is not produced unless the same amount 
 of light passes through both natural and arti- 
 ficial. The use of the hook itself precludes the 
 possibility of any delicate imitation of nature, 
 and the infinite pains anglers have taken to 
 make representations of the segmentations of 
 many of the Ephemeridcs by using quill windings 
 for the body would seem to be for naught, 
 except in so far as they affect the artistic eye 
 
148 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 of those using them. Many such flies undoubt- 
 edly take fish, but I dare say not because 
 they represent particularly the colour of the 
 natural. 
 
 It would seem, therefore, that the most im- 
 portant consideration of the fly-tier who seeks 
 to imitate the colour of the natural insect should 
 be the materials to be used. Consequently he 
 should select only those which are transparent, 
 or at least translucent, and that reflect the sur- 
 roundings as readily as the natural insect does as 
 it floats down-stream on the surface of the water. 
 It is, of course, quite obvious that the artificial, 
 no matter how cleverly it may be fashioned, 
 cannot present the same appearance of trans- 
 lucence as the natural; but one skilfully made 
 of the appropriate materials will approximate 
 it nearly enough for all practical purposes. I 
 believe that the effect produced by reflection of 
 the colour of the bottom is not so marked upon 
 an insect resting with its legs upon the surface 
 and its body above it, as it is upon the insect 
 with its body directly on the surface. If the 
 artificial could always be cast so that it rested 
 only upon its hackle, perhaps the difference be- 
 tween it and the natural would not be so marked. 
 This may be accomplished, perhaps, by those 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 149 
 
 anglers who are wedded to fishing the rise, and 
 who keep their fly absolutely dry until a fish is 
 seen feeding, but it is asking too much of those 
 who enjoy seeing their fly upon the water over 
 likely places. 
 
 Although, in certain species of insects which 
 interest anglers, the difference in size and colour 
 between the sexes is not great, in others it is 
 quite marked; and some anglers are of the 
 opinion that an imitation of the female of a 
 species is a more killing pattern than one of the 
 male. A most ingenious explanation of the fish's 
 preference for the female insect was offered by 
 the Reverend J. G. Wood in his "Insects at 
 Home," published in 1871. He says: "Should 
 the reader be an angler, he will recognise in the 
 female pseudimago the 'Green Drake,' and in 
 the perfect insect the *Grey Drake.* The angler 
 only cares for the female insects, because the 
 fish prefer them, laden as they are with eggs, to 
 the males, which have little in them but air." 
 The statement certainly endows the trout with 
 a fine sense of discrimination and taste. That 
 the female insects are preferred by the trout 
 may possibly be true, but it is to be regretted 
 that the author did not explain how he arrived at 
 the conclusion that they are preferred because 
 
ISO THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 they carry eggs. If he was an angler himself, it 
 was probably the result of personal experience 
 in the use of either the insect or its imitation; 
 or autopsies upon fish may have revealed the 
 fact. In the latter case, the discovery of a pre- 
 ponderating number of females in the stomach 
 of the fish would naturally influence his opinion; 
 but even this discovery could hardly be said to 
 prove that the trout had a preference for the 
 female because it was "laden with eggs." If 
 our author did not fish for trout, his knowledge 
 may have been based either upon information 
 obtained from some angler or upon his own ob- 
 servation of feeding fish; in the latter case, being 
 more of an entomologist than an angler, it is 
 not unreasonable to suppose that his interest 
 was centred upon the insect, and not upon the 
 fish. Having seen a number of females taken 
 in succession — probably at a time when they 
 were predominant — the fact would indicate to 
 his scientific mind a preference for the sex on the 
 part of the fish. 
 
 If the fish does in fact prefer the female, the 
 explanation may be found in the life history of 
 the May-fly, which indicates that the male, some 
 time after the sexual function is performed, falls 
 lifeless, while the female, shortly after intercourse, 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 151 
 
 hovers over the water, and, touching the surface 
 with that part of her body carrying the now 
 fertile eggs, deposits them as nature has decreed. 
 It is this action, made in a succession of dips, 
 the insect finally resting upon the water, which 
 presents that appearance of life so attractive to 
 feeding fish, trout naturally ignoring a dead insect 
 when their attention is attracted to a fluttering 
 one. If trout never took the male insect, nothing 
 would be gained by imitating it; but they do — 
 though when they do, it is generally because 
 there are no interfering females about; or, to 
 be more gallant, when the more attractive sex 
 is not strongly in evidence. It naturally sug- 
 gests itself to the angler that when the females 
 of any species are predominant upon the water, 
 it is advantageous to present a close imitation 
 of them in colour and size — the form of the 
 sexes being similar. 
 
 It seems to me that the colourist, as a rule, is 
 much too certain that his flies appear to the 
 trout as they do to his own sense of sight; 
 surely, there is no way of demonstrating or es- 
 tablishing what the truth may be. Certain it 
 is that up to the present time, it has not been 
 possible to fashion an artificial fly that would 
 give even a faint semblance of the translucence 
 
152 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 of the natural insect; and this, it seems to 
 me, is a very important consideration. Using 
 materials available, it is quite impossible to 
 duplicate this delicate appearance of the live 
 insect, and my own conclusion is that materials 
 which will most nearly represent it by permit- 
 ting a filtering of light are the ones to be em- 
 ployed — preferably materials of quiet tone and 
 colour. 
 
 I am of the opinion, also, that the colour, or 
 perhaps the transparency, of the wings of the 
 artificial fly is quite as important as the colour 
 of the body; and I am satisfied, so far as my 
 own angling is concerned, that all erect-winged 
 flies should be tied with wings made of feathers 
 from the starling's wing, or flues from the in- 
 side wing feather of the mallard or black 
 duck. For, while trout may not be able to 
 distinguish quite so readily the colour of the 
 wings out of the water as the body of the fly 
 on the water, the natural appearance of the 
 wings may prevent them from scrutinising the 
 body too closely, and thus discovering discrep- 
 ancies in its colouring; and, while wings of 
 light silvery grey may not appear so to the 
 fish, to my eye they produce a close resem- 
 blance to the transparent, gauzy wing common 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 153 
 
 to all of the EphemeridcBy in both the dun and 
 perfect states. 
 
 I have a decided preference for winged flies, 
 but that is because they look more like liv- 
 ing insects to me when they are on the water 
 than do hackled flies, and not because I think 
 they appear more natural or lifelike to the fish. 
 In practice I have found that hackled flies 
 are taken quite as readily floating as ever they 
 were when I fished them under water, and 
 it may very well be that the hackle fibres 
 standing out from and around the body on 
 and above the surface of the water are even 
 a better imitation of the wings of the Ephe- 
 meridcB than are the feathers of the winged 
 variety. Certainly a greater amount of light 
 passes through them, and the result may be a 
 better representation of the transparency and 
 neuration of the wings of the natural insect than 
 can be had from the use of artificial wings. At 
 any rate, hackled flies float admirably, and the 
 fish take them freely. And, although the dry 
 fly anglers who use them may feel that some- 
 thing of form and appearance has been sacrificed 
 to utility, their aesthetic sense wiU probably 
 survive the shock when they find themselves 
 successful — even those who insist that their fly 
 
154 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 be always beautifully cocked. If it is a consid- 
 eration to be reckoned with, a hackled fly will 
 outlast a dozen winged ones, being easily dried 
 and humoured back into shape; while, on the 
 other hand, a winged fly is almost hopelessly 
 ruined when taken by a fish. In my own fish- 
 ing I use a new fly over each fish — an extrava- 
 gant habit, perhaps — but I love to see a natural 
 looking artificial floating on the water. An old, 
 mussed-up fly may continue to take fish as did 
 the one fly we all have recollections of, that 
 took fish until it was worn to a ravelling, and 
 no other would do; nevertheless, the use of a 
 fresh fly is good insurance against defeat, and, 
 aside from its extravagance, the practice is rec- 
 ommended. 
 
 If the angler is to fish with a floating fly, the 
 necessity of some imitation of colour and form 
 is quite evident, but imitation need not be car- 
 ried to the extent of copying minute variation 
 of colour in slavish detail. To copy the form 
 of the natural fly is, of course, practically im- 
 possible. The quantity of hackle used on the 
 artificial to represent the legs of the natural 
 (which number six at most) could hardly be 
 lessened, so great is its aid in floating the fly. 
 Mr. Halford recommends tying the tail of the 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 155 
 
 artificial in four whisks so as to increase its 
 buoyancy, even though the setae of the natural 
 number but two in most cases — never more than 
 three. The use of these parts in slightly exagger- 
 ated form does not denote a contempt for the 
 keenness of the fish's vision on the part of the 
 angler employing them. Rather, they are a 
 necessary evil, and, after all, show a divergence 
 in form in no way so marked as that occasioned 
 by the hook. 
 
 If approximately exact imitation of form of 
 the dun or subimago of the Ephemeridce is at- 
 tempted, the wings of the artificial should be 
 tied so as to stand close together and directly 
 upright over the body. But a deviation from 
 this form to the extent of having the wings 
 separated will enable the angler to present the 
 fly cocked more frequently, to drop it lightly, 
 and will work but little harm. 
 
 In my own fishing I am willing to risk any 
 defeat which a slight variance in colour may in- 
 vite, if the fly will float erect and in the place I 
 wish it to. While delicacy in handling the line 
 will place the fly upright more often than not, 
 "cocking" the fly is unfortunately not under di- 
 rect control of the angler. *' Cocking" is a very 
 important part of the imitation of the natural 
 
156 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 insect — that imitation described as "position" 
 — but it is not so essential as the accurate and 
 dehcate placing of the fly, which last depends 
 entirely upon the skill of the angler. Perhaps 
 "position" is best described by saying that it 
 includes both "attitude" and "plane." 
 
 The plane in which the fly is to travel must 
 be selected by the angler, and a combination of 
 the judgment which prompts this selection, and 
 the skill which maintains the plane during a 
 great number of casts, will contribute more to 
 success than the presentation of any particular 
 pattern of fly. As a matter of fact, it is per- 
 haps the only form of imitation which approxi- 
 mates nature — a fly sitting upon the water, be- 
 ing carried down-stream in the same current, 
 and as unhampered and unrestrained in its 
 action as a natural insect. Reliance upon cer- 
 tain patterns purporting to represent certain 
 insects is never so strong again with the angler 
 who, by his own skill, produces an imitation in 
 this way that deludes a good fish. The govern- 
 ing consideration in the practice of this theory 
 of imitation is the selection of the proper current 
 in which to place the fly, and the angler, 
 being guided naturally by his knowledge of 
 the habits of the fish, should make a close 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 157 
 
 study of the trend of the stream currents— 
 particularly of those upon its surface — before 
 beginning operations. Whether or not the fly 
 is to be placed an inch from the bank, or a foot 
 or two away, should depend entirely upon this 
 observation, plane being always the important 
 consideration. 
 
 The surface currents carry down numbers 
 of insects, both dead and alive, and the edge 
 of that one which is carrying most drift and 
 is travelling slowest should be chosen by the 
 angler for the delivery of the artificial — al- 
 ways with regard to the avoidance of drag. 
 If there are no insects about or upon the sur- 
 face of the water, small drift stuffs, leaves, 
 twigs, and the like will be carried down in 
 the same plane, and under this surface drift 
 the fish will probably be lying. He is inter- 
 ested in things upon the surface, and it is the 
 angler's business to know it, and to so present 
 the fly that it will come down as naturally as 
 an unhampered insect. 
 
 It seems hardly necessary to state that it 
 will be found well-nigh if not quite impossible to 
 imitate the fluttering of a fly over or upon the 
 water, by means of the rod. Yet many of us, 
 when wet fly fishing, have deluded ourselves 
 
IS8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 into the belief that, by the use of a dropper-fly 
 and its careful manipulation, we were simulat- 
 ing, to a certain degree, the fluttering of the 
 natural insect. At any rate, when the fly was 
 taken we flattered ourselves that this was the 
 case. Yet frequently, with the angler's atten- 
 tion centred upon giving to the dropper-fly a 
 proper motion, the submerged tail-fly was taken, 
 and usually by the larger fish. Instead of weak- 
 ening one's faith in the dropper-fly and the 
 efficacy of its jerky motion, experiences such as 
 these have been known to strengthen a belief in 
 the method; and I have heard the idea expressed 
 that the action of the dropper-fly on the surface 
 had attracted the attention of the fish to the 
 tail-fly. This may be true, but, as a matter of 
 fact, the sunk fly was the better imitation of 
 life, which perhaps accounts for the fish's pref- 
 erence for it. 
 
 Those who practised fly fishing in the man- 
 ner described paid little regard to imitation of 
 colour, and perhaps less to imitation of form; a 
 comparison of the ordinary tackle-shop wet fly 
 with the natural insect will convince any doubt- 
 ing angler that this is so. When they did at- 
 tempt to imitate the colour of the natural fly, 
 they were accustomed to give little or no thought 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 159 
 
 to colour changes likely to take place upon im- 
 mersion, with the result that in many cases 
 where silk was used upon the body of the fly, 
 these changes were great enough to destroy 
 almost at once any resemblance to nature the 
 artificial might have had before it was wet. 
 I sometimes find myself believing that these 
 anglers, when they considered colour at all, 
 considered it only in relation to its effect upon 
 their own eyes, and without any regard to the 
 fish's view of it — perhaps not entirely without 
 reason. True, the changes in, or loss of, colour 
 were offset to a considerable extent by the 
 motion, more or less rapid, imparted to the fly, 
 which prevented close scrutiny by the trout, 
 and detection of the fraud. My own notion 
 is that as the fly had to be taken quickly by 
 the fish, if at all, it was taken because it was 
 moving and might be food of some sort and not 
 because it looked like or was an imitation of any 
 particular insect. 
 
 There are a great many expert anglers in 
 America who fish with accurate or close imi- 
 tations of the natural insect, wet or sunk, and 
 who, by virtue of their skill in throwing the fly 
 and their knowledge of the haunts and habits 
 of the trout, are enabled to basket fish of fine 
 
i6o THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 quality and size — fish that would be creditable 
 to the angler's skill under almost any circum- 
 stance of capture. I hazard the opinion, how- 
 ever, that they derive less real sport from their 
 method than does the angler who fishes with a 
 single dry and floating fly, imparts no motion 
 to it, and presents an imitation of a natural 
 insect which the trout is at liberty to inspect 
 and, if his suspicion is aroused by the transpar- 
 ency of the fraud or because of some mistake in 
 delivery, to reject. The dry fly angler must 
 know quite as much of the haunts and habits 
 of the fish as the wet fly angler and, to cast his 
 fly successfully, must have the greater skill. 
 Above all, the dry fly method is the more fas- 
 cinating, because the angler actually sees the 
 rise and the taking of the fly, the sense of sight 
 as well as the sense of touch conducing to his 
 pleasurable emotion. His imagination — and all 
 ardent anglers have imagination — will immedi- 
 ately come into play, and he will find himself 
 convinced that the imitation has really deceived 
 the fish into believing that a living insect lay 
 upon the water. 
 
 I venture to suggest the fancy that the taking 
 of a trout with a nondescript fly of blue or red 
 — the Parmacheene Belle, the Jenny Lind, or 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT i6i 
 
 what-not — even though it may have been pre- 
 sented accurately, superbly cocked and lightly 
 floating, can never produce in the angler's mind 
 the feeling of satisfaction that attends him when 
 he captures a fine fish with a fair imitation 
 of the natural fly upon the water at the time, 
 or with one which may be assumed to represent 
 in colour and form a natural fly of a species 
 which might be expected to be about at the 
 season. True, I may seem to be stretching the 
 point too finely, but I have expressed the fancy 
 to some of my friends, who, after hearing me, 
 were good enough to say, as indeed I hoped they 
 would, "Why, the trout that took the gaudy 
 fly was a fool fish that would have taken any- 
 thing." They seemed to believe, as I do, that 
 the angler who captures a "fool'* fish attains 
 to no honour; that "fool" fish are not the sort 
 of fish one should covet. The fancy may be 
 strongly characterised by many as eccentric, I 
 know, but I am sure that it embodies the prin- 
 ciple and spirit of true sportsmanship. 
 
 The theory of imitation may not be justly 
 attacked or lightly set aside because of the fact 
 that nondescript flies frequently take fish, — 
 sometimes after fair imitations have been re- 
 fused. My own belief is that when the highly 
 
1 62 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 coloured nondescript is taken, success should be 
 ascribed to the great skill of the angler and his 
 particularly clean presentation of the fly, or to 
 the fact that the fly was "popped" over and so 
 close to a fish that it was seized because of its 
 proximity. 
 
 The taking of trout with either of those two 
 famous flies, the Gold-Ribbed Hare's Ear or 
 the Wickham's Fancy, after fish have refused 
 close imitations of the insects upon which 
 they were feeding, might also be urged as an 
 argument against the imitation theory, though 
 against the colour part of it only, as those two 
 patterns, while imitations, perhaps, of no indi- 
 vidual insects, do bear a general resemblance to 
 many, and may be said to be typical in form. 
 It is quite possible that the bright tinsel body 
 of the Wickham's Fancy, and the rib of gold 
 wire or tinsel of the Hare's Ear, represent to the 
 trout that beautiful, iridescent colouring plainly 
 visible upon the body of many natural insects. 
 It is also quite possible that the flashing of 
 the tinsel, opaque though it is, produces that 
 quality of translucence so apparent in the nat- 
 ural insect. 
 
 The theory that a counterpart in colour and 
 form of the natural food of the trout is more 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 163 
 
 likely to prove effective than a nondescript, is 
 logical, beyond question, not only because the 
 imitation is likely to delude the fish, but also 
 because of the appeal it makes to the angler's 
 own sense of fitness; for it is more than likely 
 that the angler, knowing his imitation to be a 
 correct one, will feel a confidence that will en- 
 able him to make a cleaner presentation of it, 
 and to simulate more closely the great essentials 
 — action and position. And yet within the ex- 
 perience of every angler there have been times 
 when the very closest imitation of the insect 
 upon which the trout were presumably feeding, 
 presented in the best possible manner, has 
 failed to excite any interest on the part of the 
 fish, and when an artificial in no way resem- 
 bling the natural in colour took trout quite as 
 well as the closest imitation. On such occasions 
 the faith of the advocate of close imitation 
 probably received a rude shock. 
 
 Although considered out of fashion among 
 fly fishermen of the present day, one occasion- 
 ally meets an angler who still adheres to what 
 is known as the "routine" system. The advo- 
 cates of this system believe in the necessity of 
 presenting to the fish a certain series of artificial 
 flies in February, another series in March, and 
 
i64 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 continuing a different series for each month of 
 the season. The theory is based, of course, 
 upon the imitation of those insects which pre- 
 vail in the particular months. "Routine'* an- 
 glers of the past probably had opinions as 
 firmly fixed as those of anglers of to-day, and 
 it is very likely that there were a few who per- 
 sistently clung to the prescribed flies for May, 
 when fishing that month, and used no others — 
 fish or no fish. 
 
 Whatever effect the colour of the artificial fly 
 may have upon trout, and however necessary 
 the proper shade may be felt to be when cast- 
 ing to fish that are feeding upon some particular 
 species of insect, it is quite certain that the 
 angler cannot rely upon this form of imitation 
 alone to take fish. In fishing with the floating 
 fly the imitation of the form of the natural in- 
 sect, in my opinion, is quite as essential as that 
 of its colour, and frequently size will be found 
 to be even more important than either. My 
 own experiences have convinced me that imita- 
 tion of the natural insect is absolutely neces- 
 sary, and I put the forms this should take 
 in the following order — the order of their im- 
 portance: 
 
 1st — Position of the fly upon the water. 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 165 
 
 2nd — Its action. 
 
 3rd — Size of the fly. 
 
 4th — Form of the fly. 
 
 Sth — Colour of the fly. 
 
 The degrees of importance which separate 
 form, size, and colour may not be widely marked, 
 and, while an exact imitation of the colour, size, 
 and form of the insect which the trout are tak- 
 ing is undoubtedly the ideal combination, I 
 believe that if failure results from any variation 
 from this combination, colour is least respon- 
 sible for it. I cannot go so far as to say that 
 trout are entirely colour-blind, or that a cor- 
 rectly sized and shaped artificial dressed in blue 
 would kill a fish that was taking a natural yel- 
 low dun, but I do believe that even a great di- 
 vergence in the shade of colour of the artificial 
 tied in imitation of the natural insect would 
 make no material difference to the fish, if it were 
 properly presented. In fact, it is my opinion 
 that the artificial need not be yellow at all; 
 that a fly of subdued colour — a Whirling Dun, a 
 Silver Sedge, a Pink Lady, or any fly of similar 
 conformation — will be accepted by the fish feed- 
 ing upon a little yellow may if its presentation 
 is clean. 
 
 We have all had experience with certain fish. 
 
i66 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 or, perhaps, with many fish, on certain days 
 when, although they appeared to be feeding, it 
 seemed next to impossible to induce a rise. 
 Such failures are invariably ascribed to lack of 
 proper imitation — usually, colour. Sometimes 
 the angler, if he be an expert fly-tier, sets about 
 fashioning a fly which resembles the insect some 
 particular fish is taking, and, presenting it either 
 at that time or the next day, is delighted to find 
 it taken readily. He is immediately a strong 
 advocate of the theory of colour imitation, but 
 he is sometimes uncertain that another pattern 
 would not have served quite as well. Whether 
 or not the pattern did the killing is really an 
 open question. 
 
 Just above the dam in front of the Spruce 
 Cabin Inn, at Canadensis, on the Brodhead, is a 
 beautiful stretch of flat water where a great many 
 fine fish may always be found. However, they 
 are not always to be taken. Along the bank 
 opposite the road, which at this point is but a 
 few feet from the stream, is a heavy growth of 
 wood. The rhododendron, which is quite thick, 
 throws its roots out from the bank under water, 
 and the interstices between these roots afford 
 fine hiding-places for the fish. At the upper end 
 of the wood, just where a field joins it, there is a 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 167 
 
 deep hole which is the home of a very large 
 trout— a fish that has sorely tried the patience 
 of the few anglers who have attempted to take 
 him. An overhanging tree prevents the deliv- 
 ery of a really effective cast from below, and 
 this undoubtedly accounts for a great many 
 failures. In three successive years I have raised 
 this fish seven times (a very small proportion of 
 the times I have tried for him), on four occasions 
 leaving my fly with him, and not fastening 
 solidly on the others. An old tree-stump to 
 which the fish rushes immediately upon being 
 hooked accounts for the smashes. The fish will 
 not rise to a fly on coarse gut, and the fine gut 
 will not hold him from the stump. If there ever 
 was a trout that could convince the angler that 
 exact — and even minute — imitation was abso- 
 lutely essential, this is the one. He feeds reg- 
 ularly, and may be seen rising steadily for hours 
 at a time. No amount of casting will put him 
 down, unless clumsily done, and he will rise 
 to a natural insect within a few inches of the 
 artificial, time and again, ignoring the latter 
 totally. On one occasion — the last time I tried 
 for him — I failed so signally with all my favour- 
 ite patterns, that I might have been convinced 
 that exact imitation was necessary had it not 
 
l68 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 been for the fact that the fish rose indiscrimi- 
 nately to many different sorts — spinners, gnats, 
 and the smaller members of the beetle family, 
 lady-bugs, and the like, and finally to an artificial 
 which bore no resemblance to any of these. I 
 could not imitate them all, and had tried faith- 
 fully with a fair imitation, in size and colour, of 
 one species. It was all to no purpose, however, 
 and to see him continually rising after the many 
 attempts I had made was, to say the least, 
 chastening. I finally decided, after watching 
 him feed for ten minutes, to make one more 
 attempt, and to keep casting the one pattern 
 until he took it or was put down. I knotted on 
 a fly known as the "Mole," which looks like an 
 insect on the water at a distance, but very unlike 
 one when examined closely. This fly was offered 
 probably twenty times or more, without effect, 
 the fish continuing to rise to the natural insects 
 all about it. The cast which eventually raised 
 him differed from any that I had previously 
 made, though without intent on my part. When 
 the fly alighted about a foot above the fish, it 
 fell upon its side with one wing on the surface 
 and the other in the air. Drifting down to with- 
 in a few inches of the fish, it suddenly stood 
 erect and cocked, this apparently the result of 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 169 
 
 some pressure brought to bear upon the leader 
 by the slow current. It had hardly assumed 
 this upright position, and perhaps was still in 
 the act of regaining its equilibrium, when it dis- 
 appeared and I was fast to the fish. He added 
 this fly to his collection, and while I sadly 
 examined the leader to ascertain the extent 
 of the damage done, I was not wholly discon- 
 tented. 
 
 I threw a Whirling Dun to this fish one day 
 over a hundred times without putting him down 
 or having him evince the slightest interest in 
 it. A few minutes later, going up-stream from 
 him, I detached the fly from the leader, and, 
 breaking the hook off at the bend, floated it 
 down, and it was taken readily. Perhaps on 
 this occasion I missed the psychological mo- 
 ment, and it is quite possible that the fly would 
 have been taken if I had made one more cast, 
 though not very probable. My own notion of it 
 is that the pattern, when floated down with the 
 hook broken off, had a certain naturalness which 
 was lacking when it was attached to the leader. 
 Either the leader itself was seen, or its restraint 
 upon the fly destroyed its natural appearance. 
 On the other hand, however, the difficulty in 
 presenting the fly because of the overhanging 
 
I/O THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 tree may have prevented a proper presentation, 
 though I think a great number of times it ap- 
 proached the fish admirably. Whatever the 
 reason may have been, I did not raise him that 
 day. 
 
 Perhaps the actions of another fish that I 
 watched feeding steadily for over an hour may, 
 while hardly offering a solution of the difficulty, 
 present some basis for conjecture. A gentleman 
 who had observed him feeding the day before 
 called my attention to the fact that a good trout 
 occupied a little pocket about one hundred 
 yards above the big fish which has given me so 
 much sport, and he led me mysteriously away 
 from the inn, and as mysteriously up the road, 
 until we reached the spot where the fish was, 
 when he asked me to look in the little eddy and 
 tell him what I saw. For a moment or two I 
 could see nothing but a little drift stuff, but 
 very shortly a good-sized snout broke the sur- 
 face, and a large bubble floated where it had ap- 
 peared. While we spent ten or fifteen minutes 
 watching the fish rise, I laid plans to get him 
 the next day. In the morning I thought better 
 of it, however, and planned to crawl down to 
 the water's edge and study his actions at close 
 range. In clambering down the steep bank I 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 171 
 
 was rather clumsy, and he took fright and disap- 
 peared. Getting as close as I could to the water, 
 I hid behind a bush and watched for the fish to 
 return, which he did in just four minutes, timed 
 by my watch. This in itself was interesting, as 
 it tended to show how long the incident lingered 
 in his memory. The eddy which he occupied 
 was formed at the bottom of a rather swift little 
 run by a large boulder that deflected a part of 
 the stream toward the bank and started it up- 
 stream again. The fish stationed himself ex- 
 actly in the centre of this up-stream current, 
 which was not very strong, and immediately 
 began feeding. He rose three or four times a 
 minute, sometimes oftener, according to the op- 
 portunities presented. There were very few 
 insects in the air, but apparently a great many 
 upon the surface of the water. I think perhaps 
 a half dozen or so of diff^erent sorts alighted di- 
 rectly in the eddy, all of which the fish accounted 
 for, but the majority of rises were to insects 
 that were carried down-stream upon the surface, 
 and collected in the eddy. They were of all 
 sizes and shapes, from the tiniest Diptera, which 
 interested him much, to a small, dead butterfly, 
 lying flat, which he examined closely, but de- 
 clined. It was this discrimination that puzzled 
 
172 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 me. He took many apparently dead insects, 
 and refused many. He never refused any that 
 were alive, and size or colour or shape made no 
 difference to him. Why some dead insects ap- 
 pealed to him and others did not, I cannot guess, 
 unless, perhaps, those that appeared dead to me 
 did not look so to him. Every time he rose, it 
 was with the greatest deliberation; never did he 
 rush at the fly, and once when a particularly 
 active dun fluttered on the surface close to him, 
 instead of rushing for it as I expected him to do, 
 he merely backed up under it, rising very slowly, 
 finally sucking it in. Another thing I noticed 
 was that he never went forward to take an in- 
 sect. He went forward frequently to meet one, 
 but always took it backing up. This manner of 
 taking a fly is not at all unusual, as fish may fre- 
 quently be seen backing under an artificial, 
 sometimes even turning down-stream before tak- 
 ing it. If an insect showed the slightest activity, 
 which many of them did in various ways, moving 
 the body up and down, opening and closing 
 their wings, or moving their legs, he never 
 hesitated, but took it at once, even the tiniest. 
 If the insect lay upon its side, he would drift 
 with it a foot or two, sometimes taking it, fre- 
 quently leaving it. On one occasion he backed 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 173 
 
 under an insect in this position for a distance of 
 about three feet, and stopped, apparently aban- 
 doning it; but the next instant he turned, took 
 it quietly, and swam slowly back to his station. 
 I was unable to see this insect as clearly as I 
 wished, and I do not know that it moved at the 
 moment it was taken, but from the manner in 
 which the fish took the others, it seems likely 
 that this was the case. Notwithstanding the 
 decided preference shown by this fish for the 
 moving or living insects, he rose and took a 
 piece of a twig about three eighths of an inch 
 long which I flipped to him at a moment when 
 he was unoccupied, and I found this twig in his 
 stomach the next day, together with three spruce 
 needles, two of which were green and one yel- 
 low. Would the presence of this drift stuff in 
 his stomach indicate that the fish was near- 
 sighted, or that such drift really had a place in 
 his dietary? 
 
 I have found in the stomachs of trout many 
 small sticks, plainly fresh, and which certainly 
 formed no part of a caddis casing. Why they 
 were taken is hard to say; some anglers have 
 expressed the opinion, which may possibly be 
 sound, that the fish are compelled to take them 
 in the attempt to secure some poor shipwrecked 
 insects which are using them as rafts. I prefer 
 
174 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 to believe, however, that they are mistaken by 
 the fish for some form of Ufe, perhaps having 
 the appearance of caddis larvae. The spruce 
 needles were probably mistaken for willow flies, 
 or some of the family of Perlidce — those with 
 wings that fold along the back. 
 
 That the fish was taken the following morn- 
 ing on the Mole, which certainly imitated no 
 insect with which he may have been familiar, 
 perhaps means nothing. As he was feeding 
 regularly, and rather indiscriminately, he was 
 probably an easy fish to take. The Mole was 
 just another morsel that looked natural enough. 
 The first cast took him, the fly drifting up to 
 him after having been cast over the boulder at 
 the bottom of the eddy. The leader was not 
 seen, and as the fly appeared in a natural, up- 
 right position, his suspicion was not aroused, 
 and a minute or two later he was in the net. 
 Withal, the fish showed a decided preference for 
 living insects, and refused those which were cer- 
 tainly no deader than an artificial fly; and yet 
 the Mole was taken with just as much confi- 
 dence as if it had been a living thing. I think 
 it quite within reason that any pattern of fly 
 properly presented would have taken the fish 
 as readily as did the fly which he rose to, and 
 my conclusion is that it was because of its 
 
IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 175 
 
 position that it was taken. My observation of 
 this fish confirmed my belief in the necessity of 
 so placing the fly that it would come to the fish 
 just as a natural insect would, floating upon the 
 surface. There is a great difference between the 
 effect produced by a fly cast upon likely looking 
 water, or to a feeding fish, without special care 
 as to where it may alight, and that produced 
 by one cast exactly to the proper spot. 
 
 The larger fish down-stream apparently was 
 interested only in live insects, which is shown, 
 I think, by his utter refusal of every artificial 
 of any pattern, including the Mole, which he 
 ignored each time it came over him, until the 
 twist in the leader, or some other uncontrolled 
 action, turned the fly over on the surface, and 
 simulated to a certain extent the struggle of an 
 insect endeavouring to rise from the water. I 
 am convinced that my many failures with this 
 fish were due, in the main, to my inability to 
 place the fly in a proper position. This con- 
 clusion is supported, I think, by the fact that 
 he took the unattached Whirling Dun — which 
 I was careful to float down to him in the proper 
 current — after he had refused it scores of times 
 when attached to the leader. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 
 
 Some anglers have come to believe that the 
 trout of our heavily fished streams have devel- 
 oped such wariness and cunning that they view 
 the artificial fly of the angler with suspicion, 
 even if they do not actually know it to be an 
 imitation. In the light of certain experiences 
 of my own, I am unable to concur in the con- 
 clusion reached by these anglers that trout are 
 capable of reasoning or remembering specific in- 
 cidents for any long period of time; it is my 
 opinion — presented, however, with some hesi- 
 tancy — that they refuse the artificial fly not 
 because they have had previous experience 
 with it but because of various other reasons, 
 the most important of which are the unnatural 
 action of the fly and the probability of the fish 
 having seen the angler, his rod, the leader, or 
 the shadow of one or all. Surely the trout of 
 these streams cannot in July and August re- 
 member the hordes of anglers that invaded their 
 
 haunts in May. Admitting it to be true that in 
 
 176 
 
SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 177 
 
 the earlier months of the season it is compara- 
 tively easy to take trout, even when the streams 
 are full of anglers, and that later, in the summer 
 months, with but two or three anglers, or at most 
 a half dozen, to be seen, infinite skill is often 
 required to induce even a single fair rise, some- 
 thing other than the memory of the fish must 
 be the cause of his reluctance to rise, as the 
 following instances may tend to prove. 
 
 In July, 191 1, I rose, hooked, and returned 
 to the water four fish three times each in one 
 week; and these fish were taken in the same 
 place and on the same pattern of fly each time. 
 On another occasion I rose and landed an 
 eleven-inch rainbow trout which I returned to 
 the water, and the next day this fish was brought 
 home by a fellow angler who had taken him in 
 the same place. This last may possibly have 
 been another fish; but about .the four other 
 trout there can be no mistake, as I marked them 
 without injury before returning them to the 
 water the first time. I was prompted to make 
 this experiment after taking a fish from one 
 spot, which resembled closely in size and form 
 a fish I had returned to the water a few days 
 previously. This fish was one of the four, and 
 was twice taken and returned. Each of the fish 
 
178 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 gave up a minute piece of its caudal fin in re- 
 turn for its life. 
 
 Often, too, one hears of trout being taken 
 with the fly of some luckless or careless angler 
 fast in its jaw. On the Brodhead, in 1907, one 
 morning about eight o'clock, I rose and killed a 
 native trout weighing about a pound, which had 
 a fly in its lip left there by an angler the eve- 
 ning before; his nose was raw and bleeding where 
 he had scraped it against the stones in his 
 efforts to dislodge the hook. Experiences of 
 this sort do not tend to confirm the belief that 
 fish have memory. 
 
 The more enemies an animal has the more 
 wary it is, and in those least able to defend them- 
 selves against attack the senses which enable 
 them to avoid danger are most keen. In some 
 animals, sight, smell, and hearing are all keenly 
 alert; in others a combination of two of these 
 senses is relied upon, and in rare cases but one. 
 These faculties give warning of the approach of 
 an enemy, and time, in most cases, for the use of 
 such secondary means of defence as are provided 
 by nature — speed, flight, protective colouring, 
 or whatever they may be. 
 
 In the case of trout, since scientists have 
 come to no definite conclusion that fish can 
 
SOME FANCIES-SOME FACTS 179 
 
 smell, we may safely assume — from the fly 
 fisher's standpoint, at any rate — that this sense 
 has no place in our study. The same may be 
 said of taste and feeling; the luckless fish rely- 
 ing upon these senses would find himself hard 
 and fast before he could reach the conclusion 
 that the feathered fly was not what it appeared 
 to be. This leaves sight and hearing as the 
 means by which the trout is apprised of the ap- 
 proach of danger — and the angler may well say 
 that they are quite suflScient. 
 
 "If fish could hear as well as see. 
 Never a fisher would there be." 
 
 The experiments made by Ronalds and de- 
 scribed in his "Fly Fishers* Entomology" prove 
 more or less conclusively that trout cannot hear, 
 or at least are not disturbed by sounds pro- 
 duced in the air. Now, while it is quite cer- 
 tain that they are affected by vibrations com- 
 municated to the water, the bottom of the 
 stream, or its banks, I do not believe that the 
 disturbance is conveyed to the senses of the fish 
 unless the vibrations take place close to it. In 
 this connection, an experiment made by myself 
 may prove interesting, even though it may be 
 in no way conclusive, as it was tried but once. 
 
i8o THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 and the trout which served as the medium may 
 have been "deaf." Taking my position on a high 
 bank above the fish and completely out of sight, I 
 had a young man go below and thirty feet down- 
 stream. Lying prone upon the opposite shore, 
 which was level with the water, and taking 
 pains not to make any quick move which might 
 have spoiled the experiment, he took two stones, 
 one in each hand, and, at a signal from me, 
 struck them together, a foot under water. He 
 did this a dozen times, each succeeding blow 
 being harder than the previous one. The sound 
 produced by the clashing stones had no ap- 
 parent effect upon the fish, but I noticed that 
 the series of small waves or ripples created by 
 the disturbance of the surface, upon reaching the 
 trout, seemed to make it uneasy, and it began 
 "weaving" from side to side, covering, however, 
 not more than a foot in its movements. When 
 the fish had quieted down, and after another 
 trial, with the same effect, I had the lad abandon 
 the stones and make as large a wave as he could, 
 directed toward the fish. There was consider- 
 able splashing during the attempt, but the trout 
 gave no indication that it was aware of the dis- 
 turbance until the first ripple was passing over 
 it, when it became as uneasy as before, and 
 
SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS i8i 
 
 even more excited; and not until the ripple 
 had ceased did it resume the almost stationary 
 position previously held. The fish was about 
 one foot from the surface, and the largest ripple 
 not over two inches in height; consequently, its 
 motion could hardly have been felt at a depth 
 greater than six inches; yet the fish was dis- 
 turbed — whether by the action of the water it- 
 self or by the shadow cast by the ripple, I leave 
 for the reader to decide. Of one thing I am 
 positive: the fish was not disturbed by the 
 sound of the colliding stones. 
 
 The fish's sense of sight is so keen that it 
 alone enables the trout to avoid danger, and is 
 absolutely necessary to its existence. But it is 
 not so keen, in my opinion, as to enable the 
 trout to detect minute differences between the 
 angler's fly and the natural insect — except, of 
 course, when the action of the artificial fly is so 
 unnatural as to warn the fish, or frighten it. 
 
 Adherents to the theory that trout are able 
 to distinguish between the angler's artificial 
 fly and the natural insect, make much of the 
 admitted fact that a fish is rarely taken from 
 the much fished Southern streams on a Par- 
 macheene Belle or other nondescript. There 
 is a great deal of truth in the contention; but 
 
1 82 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 the fact is lost sight of that these flies are usu- 
 ally presented by anglers who have but little 
 knowledge of the habits of the fish they are seek- 
 ing, their experience having been gained solely 
 at the expense of the trout of the wilderness. 
 
 While not asserting the opinion that a gaudy 
 fly will not take fish, I would remind the reader 
 that such a fly is usually cast by a man who 
 presents himself to the fish before he offers the 
 fly — with the inevitable result. The instinct of 
 self-preservation is strong in the trout, and he 
 flees the apparition, though, if he would but 
 realise it, he was never safer than at the very 
 moment of its appearance. 
 
 Anything unusual that comes within the 
 vision of the fish means to him a possible 
 danger, and the desire to feed, if he be in the 
 mood, is forgotten in his effort to locate the 
 point of attack. Any shadow thrown upon the 
 water indicates the approach of an enemy — 
 a heron, a kingfisher, a mink (the most destruc- 
 tive of all), or a man, in whom he recognises an 
 enemy only because he sees a moving object. 
 Beset as the trout is at all times, it is but natural 
 that he should make use of his only means of 
 defence — speed — and escape while he may. On 
 streams that are much fished, frequent sight 
 
SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 183 
 
 of man is afforded the fish, and, although the 
 actions of the angler (except in rare cases) do 
 not indicate the danger of actual personal en- 
 counter, the fish retires, precipitately or quietly, 
 according to the manner in which he is ap- 
 proached. It is this sight of man or his shadow, 
 and not the the ability to detect the fraud, that 
 impels him to refrain from taking the fly. If 
 the angler remain hidden from view, and throw 
 the fly properly, without the accompaniment of 
 shadows of himself, rod, line, or leader, and a 
 rise is not induced, he may safely assume that 
 it is lack of inclination on the part of the fish, 
 and not a contempt for the pattern of the fly, 
 bred of familiarity with it, that causes him to 
 refuse it. 
 
 These facts, or fancies, as they may be con- 
 sidered, are presented only as they may sup- 
 port a theory that accounts for the wariness and 
 cunning of the trout of much fished streams, 
 and the apparent lack of these attributes in the 
 trout of the wilderness. It is a well known fact 
 that a man who wishes to take trout in Maine, 
 Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, or, in fact, 
 anywhere in the north woods where they are 
 plentiful, need have had no previous experience 
 to enable him to catch all that the law, or his 
 
1 84 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 conscience, permits. This same man fishing in 
 Pennsylvania or lower New York, practising 
 the same methods he applied in the North, will 
 leave the streams with the idea firmly fixed in 
 his mind that they are barren of fish, or, per- 
 chance, viewing the catch made by a more 
 skilful angler, will come to the conclusion that 
 the fish are more wary than their fellows of the 
 North, and that a skill unknown to the angler 
 lacking experience on these waters is required 
 to take them. The instinct of self-preservation 
 is quite as strong in the trout of the wilderness, 
 but expresses itself in other ways that are in 
 keeping with the different conditions they have 
 to contend with. 
 
 In most places where trout are plentiful, 
 there is abundance of room for them to 
 escape from an enemy, an advantage denied 
 the trout which are restricted to the narrow 
 confines of one of our mountain streams, par- 
 ticularly when the water is low and the trout 
 have to be more wary than ever, if they are to 
 survive. While endowed with the same agility 
 and the same keenness of sight, the wilderness 
 fish are emboldened by numbers, and appear to 
 depend a great deal upon one another for warn- 
 ing; they are alert only to the "main chance"; 
 
SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 185 
 
 i. e., the taking of anything that looks Hke food. 
 This explains why it is easy for the veriest tyro 
 fishing in the wilderness to take as many fish 
 with the fly in a single day as the expert on 
 the Southern streams would be content to take 
 in a season. Many of these big catches are made 
 upon lakes and streams that are heavily fished; 
 * yet the angler rarely has to resort to methods 
 which require any great skill. In many instances 
 the fishing is done from a canoe, and fish are 
 taken quite close to it, the interest on the part 
 of the trout seemingly being actuated by nothing 
 more than a desire to "beat his fellows to it." 
 
 The law of "the survival of the fittest" ap- 
 plies equally to the fish of the Southern streams 
 and to the fish of the wilderness. In both cases 
 vigilance and agility are the price of continued 
 existence — on the one hand, to avoid the attack 
 which may deprive the fish of life, on the other, 
 to excel in the scramble for that which will sus- 
 tain it. 
 
 If the old saw which runs, "When the wind 
 is in the north the skilful fisherman goes not 
 forth," etc., referred to fly fishing, it was plainly 
 meant for the angler who did not care to in- 
 dulge in his sport when the chilling blasts from 
 this quarter were howling about the stream. 
 
1 86 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 because it is in no sense descriptive of the effect 
 of the wind upon the feeding of the fish. When 
 an angler has taken trout under conditions 
 ranging from flat calms to gales from every 
 point of the compass, it is difficult for him to 
 believe that wind has any direct effect upon the 
 fish, aside, perhaps, from the influence it exerts 
 in promoting or retarding the development of 
 the insects upon which they feed; and this last 
 depends more upon the temperature of the wind 
 than it does upon its force or the quarter from 
 which it comes. 
 
 The angler who is fishing the flat, still water 
 of a pond or lake hopes for a breeze in order 
 that he may take advantage of the ripple caused 
 by it, and deceive or approach his fish more 
 readily. The advantage afforded by the breeze 
 is offset on many occasions, in proportion to the 
 force of the wind, by the increased difficulty of 
 casting; and when a stiff wind islblowing down- 
 stream or in the face of the angler it is of negli- 
 gible value. So far as comfort is concerned, a 
 chilling wind is very disagreeable, and the an- 
 gler unfortunate enough to be upon the stream 
 during a "norther" in the early spring is quite 
 of the mind that trout are sensible of it, when 
 he finds them in no keener mood for the sport 
 
SOME FANCIES-SOME FACTS 187 
 
 than he is; yet it was just such a day, as cold 
 and blustering as I have ever experienced, that 
 the trout on the Brodhead, of which I have told, 
 rose to the fly which was made to play such 
 pranks by the wind. 
 
 There is a gentleman of my acquaintance, an 
 expert with the fly, who holds that it is useless 
 to fish a wooded stream when the wind is blow- 
 ing heavily, not so much because of any change 
 in atmospheric conditions, but because the rap- 
 idly moving shadows thrown upon the water 
 by the frantically waving overhead limbs and 
 branches seem to make the trout restless or 
 nervous, and unwilling to feed. Be this as it 
 may, it certainly does not apply upon the open 
 stretches, for there the wind is of distinct ad- 
 vantage, because the ruffled surface helps to 
 conceal the angler's activities from the fish. 
 When success does not attend the caster's 
 efl^orts on days of this sort, failure must be 
 ascribed to his state of mind rather than to the 
 condition of the weather. 
 
 And here just a hint from my own experi- 
 ence: beware of fishing in big woods on a very 
 windy day; dead limbs may come crashing down 
 at any moment. On one occasion a difference of 
 ten feet in my position would have meant dis- 
 
i88 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 aster and these pages might never have been 
 written. 
 
 During periods of high wind the trout are 
 often treated to a change of diet, land flies, 
 grasshoppers, and beetles, unhappily overcome, 
 being readily and cheerfully accepted. On one 
 occasion, all the trout killed by five or six anglers 
 disclosed the fact, upon autopsy, that potato- 
 bugs had formed a large part of their food that 
 morning; and a fly which resembled this beetle 
 only in size and shape was found very effective. 
 This fly was a herl-bodied brown palmer, called 
 the Marlow Buzz. 
 
 The many anglers who still hold to the belief 
 that trout will not rise during a thunder-storm 
 do so, no doubt, because it offers an excuse for 
 retiring from the stream and seeking shelter, — 
 for which they cannot be blamed. It is not 
 the pleasantest situation to be caught in one of 
 the vicious storms which sometimes break with 
 scant warning. If, however, it happens that 
 the angler is so placed that he is far from a 
 road or path that will lead him to some cover, 
 he is far safer in the streams than in the woods; 
 and, making the best of a bad bargain, he should 
 continue his fishing. In all likelihood, he will 
 come to the conclusion that the theory is not 
 
SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 189 
 
 founded upon fact; for, while trout do not in- 
 variably rise during thunder-storms, they may 
 be taken on occasions when the reverberations 
 are so heavy as to be felt almost as distinctly as 
 they are heard — the effect upon the fish not 
 being apparent. 
 
 If the storm be accompanied by a heavy rain, 
 dry fly fishing ceases as soon as the water begins 
 to rise and becomes discoloured, because, even 
 though the fish may be ready to feed, there is 
 small likelihood of the angler's fly being seen 
 by them through the discoloured water. But 
 no time should be wasted in returning to the 
 stream after the flood has run off and the water 
 is clearing, as the opportunity for taking fish 
 is then probably the best that will be presented. 
 
 Idiosyncrasy — or shall we call it superstition? 
 — seems to enter into the make-up of a great 
 many anglers. 
 
 Squire Jake Price, now dead, father of the 
 boys who keep that comfortable hostelry on the 
 Brodhead, at Canadensis, in Pennsylvania, well 
 known to many anglers, was famous as a trout 
 fisherman. He fished with the fly only, tied his 
 own flies, and from the time his sons were able 
 to wade the streams would permit them to use 
 nothing else. Always keen to be at his fishing, 
 
190 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 he would not be dragged to the waterside unless 
 his "almanac'' told him the time was propitious. 
 Curiously enough, when he did go, he always 
 took fish; but this may be ascribed to the fact 
 that he "knew how" rather than to a revelation 
 from the zodiac. 
 
 A story is told of an angler of indifferent skill, 
 but anxious to take home a basket of fish, who 
 induced Squire Jake to accompany him one 
 morning. He felt certain of getting trout, the 
 Squire having approved of the day. Upon 
 their arrival at the stream-side he proceeded to 
 line his creel with fine grasses and ferns, when, 
 to his amazement, the Squire left abruptly, 
 saying he could not fish with one who would 
 thus "fly in the face of Providence." Was this 
 superstition, or only anger at the other's as- 
 surance ? 
 
 Of similar mind to the Squire are those an- 
 glers who persist in carrying, to their own in- 
 convenience, a diminutive creel and smaller net, 
 preferring to cram into either a fish twice too 
 large rather than to carry equipment of adequate 
 size; the taking of a good fish is a circumstance 
 which they feel may never be realised if they 
 anticipate it. 
 
 Some consideration must be given to the be- 
 
SOME FANCIES-SOME FACTS 191 
 
 lief of those who have unbounded faith in a 
 particular pattern of fly. There are wet fly 
 fishermen on the Beaverkill who never make up 
 their cast of three flies without including the 
 Royal Coachman; and at least one of these, 
 whom I know, uses this fly, dry, in preference 
 to any other. While the pattern has no place 
 in my book, I respect the faith others have 
 in it, which faith, however, is often rudely 
 shaken — for a short period, at least. After 
 fishing carefully for hours with his favourite fly 
 without response, the angler meets a brother 
 angler who displays two or three nice fish taken 
 on the Queen, the Bumble, or what not, and 
 passes on. For the nonce the favourite is dis- 
 carded, the Queen or Bumble is knotted on, but 
 the result is the same — nothing. Another pat- 
 tern is tried — same result. Again the fly is 
 changed, and again, and still again. In his 
 anxiety our friend uses little skill, less judgment, 
 and lacks entirely the great essential — faith. 
 
 Many times an angler, stepping quietly into 
 the stream at the beginning of his day's sport, 
 casts his fly to a spot where his experience tells 
 him a trout may be, and meets with response 
 almost immediately. His next cast is accepted 
 quite as quickly, and in these few delicious mo- 
 
192 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 ments, with the nucleus in his creel, the vision 
 he has had of the one great day's catch begins 
 to take tangible form. But how rudely the vi- 
 sion is dissipated in the next four or five hours, 
 during which time he gets not a single rise! 
 
 There are other anglers in whom entirely dif- 
 ferent emotions are aroused when they are suc- 
 cessful in taking fish soon after their arrival at 
 the stream. To them this incident spells utter 
 failure for the rest of the day. It seems to 
 me that these men neglect to analyse the 
 situation, permitting superstition to run riot 
 with reason, and, to my mind, their troubles 
 may be ascribed to any one of three causes: 
 (i) At the time the angler first steps into 
 the stream he may be arriving at the top or 
 at the end of a rise that started fifteen, 
 twenty, or thirty minutes before, which short 
 space of time may be responsible for the differ- 
 ence between two fish and a possible half dozen. 
 If the angler meets with this experience during 
 the season when the water is very low and clear, 
 and the day hot and bright, he may be satisfied 
 that, to a great extent, such is the explanation. 
 But, if he is not a principal to cause number two, 
 he should be able to continue taking some trout, 
 even under these trying conditions. (2) The 
 
SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 193 
 
 Optimist arriving at the stream side prepares 
 his rod, surveys the scene of action, and, having 
 selected the spot he is to fish, enters the stream 
 some distance below, and quietly proceeds to 
 his point of vantage. Every instinct alert, he 
 is careful to make no mistake, and his care and 
 deftness are at once rewarded. Continuing a 
 few yards, another fish is taken, and possibly a 
 bit farther on, still another. Then, blinded by 
 conceit, he falls into the pit he has dug for him- 
 self. He thinks he has at last the right medi- 
 cine, and unknowingly (and unmeaningly, bless 
 his heart) there steals over him a feeling akin to 
 contempt for the wary fish he is after. The next 
 pool is approached with a swagger that fills the 
 trout that inhabit it with consternation, and 
 drives all thought of feeding from them. Some 
 day it will occur to this angler that he has been 
 a bit overconfident, and he will try getting out 
 of the stream, going up a hundred yards through 
 the brush, and starting all over as at the be- 
 ginning; then he will come to a realisation of 
 the truth. (3) The pessimist, by analysing 
 cause number two, may overcome, to a certain 
 extent, the deep-rooted superstition that, be- 
 cause he gets a trout easily at the outset, he will 
 get no more throughout the day. His is a state 
 
194 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 of mind that surely is not conducive to best 
 effort. After taking a fish on the first few casts, 
 his subsequent proceedings are governed by an 
 anomalous condition of mind — he believes that 
 his sport is over, yet hopes the day may prove 
 the fallacy of his theory, and, in an unconscious 
 effort to avoid his fate, he fishes in a careless 
 manner. 
 
 The rise which indicates that a large fish is 
 feeding has, upon the minds of some anglers, 
 a psychological effect which works toward de- 
 feating any attempt they make in throwing to 
 him. The angler is alert only to the necessity 
 of placing his fly near the fish, and, caution 
 thrown to the winds, he approaches in a manner 
 which might be called stealthy if he used it in 
 escaping from a burning building. Having be- 
 gun without cautioning, thus preparing the way 
 to dismal failure, he fixes his eye upon the 
 spot where the rise was noted, and sends his 
 fly, with no thought, perhaps, other than to get 
 it on the water as quickly as possible. If his 
 efforts meet with no reward — and the chances 
 are that they will not — and many fish are to be 
 seen feeding all about, he probably becomes 
 frantic with desire to take one, runs through a 
 rapid change of flies in the hope of finding one 
 
SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 195 
 
 that will entice, wastes many precious minutes 
 in his fumbling uncertainty, when suddenly all 
 rising ceases, and he has lost his opportunity. 
 
 The remedy for all of these cases is the same 
 — calmness and deliberation. 
 
 The suggestion that the sight of the leader is 
 abhorrent to trout brings up a point upon which 
 great stress is laid by dry fly anglers. That the 
 fish is warned off by seeing the gut upon the 
 surface of low, clear water is to my mind more 
 certain than anything else in the sport of an- 
 gling. Whether or not frequent sight of the 
 leader makes the fish familiar with it, is difBcult 
 to determine. Personally, I believe that when a 
 fish refuses a fly because he has seen the leader 
 attached to it, his timidity is likely to be due to 
 the impression of its unnaturalness at the mo- 
 ment, rather than to his recollection of having 
 seen a like object before and learned its danger. 
 In plain words — probably inviting a storm of 
 protest and criticism — I am not inclined to the 
 notion that trout become "educated" on streams 
 that are much fished. These trout are quite 
 sensitive to danger, but, in my opinion, only 
 imminent danger affects them. The sudden 
 appearance of an angler waving a rod, or of a 
 cow fording the stream, are disturbing to trout, 
 
196 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 one just as much as the other. Both angler and 
 cow are in motion, and that alone attracts the 
 eye of the fish; both intercept light, and thus 
 cast shadows upon the water, which mean pos- 
 sible danger to him. 
 
 Anything falling upon the surface of the water 
 arouses interest on the part of a fish observing 
 it; if it be a shadow, he suspects danger in pro- 
 portion to its size and activity; the fall of a 
 leaf, a twig, or an insect is interesting to him in 
 one way or another. Frequently a leaf or twig, 
 if not so large as to frighten him at once, will 
 be investigated at close range. I have thrown 
 maple buds to trout, which were taken almost 
 immediately upon striking the water, being 
 slowly ejected afterward when it was discov- 
 ered that the buds were not food. 
 
 An insect intercepts light, but the insignifi- 
 cant shadow it casts does not alarm the fish, 
 and his attention is directed to the insect alone. 
 When the artificial fly is thrown, however, it 
 must necessarily be with the leader attached, 
 and if it so happens that the leader, or that part 
 of it close to the fly, floats upon the surface^ the 
 attention of the fish is divided between the fly 
 itself and the leader, the latter standing out 
 boldly between the eye of the fish and the back- 
 
SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 197 
 
 ground of sky. The leader floating upon the 
 surface is more visible to the fish than when 
 fully submerged. The angler who wishes to 
 demonstrate this may do so by placing a length 
 of gut upon the surface of some still, sunlit 
 water, noting the shadow cast by it upon the 
 bed of the stream, and then comparing it with 
 the shadow of the same gut submerged. 
 
 The water-strider, skipping nimbly over the 
 surface of clear, shallow water, affords an ex- 
 cellent illustration of shadow effects. The shad- 
 ows thrown upon the bottom by this curious 
 insect are enormous when compared with its 
 actual size, and those resulting from the depres- 
 sion in the surface made by the insect's feet 
 look to be as big as a dime. It was observation 
 of the shadows thrown by the water-strider that 
 prompted me to experiment with the leader; 
 and my first attempt, made with the lightest 
 leader I had, produced a shadow upon the bot- 
 tom nearly an inch in width. Whether or not 
 this shadow alarms the fish more than does the 
 leader itself, probably depends upon the cir- 
 cumstances controlling the direction of his at- 
 tention at the time, but it is certain that one or 
 the other does have a marked effect upon his 
 behaviour. Perhaps both combined have, and, 
 
198 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 consequently, he can hardly be expected to take 
 the fly when his interest is divided betwixt the 
 desire to feed, on the one hand, and suspicion 
 tinged with fear on the other. 
 
 Upon glassy water, the glistening leader, twist- 
 ing and turning upon the surface, accompanied 
 by little wrinkles along its entire length, pre- 
 sents to the fish an aspect which must at least 
 arouse his curiosity and distract his attention 
 from the fly — even though it does not terrify 
 him and scare him off entirely. 
 
 The visibility of the leader has always been 
 one of the problems of the fly fisher, irrespective 
 of the question of drag. Many attempts have 
 been made to produce a leader of neutral colour 
 that would be invisible, or approximately so, 
 when on the water. I have done some experi- 
 menting in this direction myself. I have tried 
 all colours — greens and browns, mist colours 
 and greys. I have steeped leaders in ink until 
 they came out absolutely black. Yet, withal, I 
 have failed to satisfy myself that one was better 
 than the others, when I came to use it on the 
 stream. If there is one colour that a leader 
 may be stained to render it less visible than an- 
 other, I do not know what it is. I am inclined 
 to believe, however, that gut of natural colour 
 
SOME FANCIES-SOME FACTS 199 
 
 is less conspicuous than gut that has been 
 coloured to make it harmonise with the water. 
 Partial solutions of the problem may be had by 
 assuming certain controlling conditions to exist. 
 For instance, as the fish views the leader from 
 below, and against a background formed by 
 the sky, a light-blue leader to harmonise with 
 the background on a bright day, or, for a similar 
 reason, a grey one on a cloudy day, may be the 
 very thing. Of course, it is all very speculative, 
 because the main element of the problem — what 
 the fish thinks — is an unknown one. 
 
 In my opinion, the floating, drifting leader, 
 with its wrinkles and its convolutions, consti- 
 tutes the worst possible form of "drag," which 
 must be avoided if trout are to be taken where 
 the water is slow and unruffled. The angler 
 should endeavour to have the fly float and the 
 leader sink — obviously, by keeping one dry and 
 the other wet. He will find it even more difficult 
 to keep the leader wet than to keep the fly dry; 
 even when thoroughly saturated, the former will 
 not submerge readily when the fly is thrown as 
 lightly as it should be. 
 
 In swifter water it is easier to keep the leader 
 under the surface, but here one encounters an- 
 other form of drag which, while in my opinion 
 
200 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 not so fatal to the angler's chances as the one I 
 have described, is oftentimes more exasperating. 
 This form of drag takes place when the fly, 
 although accurately and lightly placed in the 
 desired spot, is snatched away almost at once 
 by the current pulling on the line or leader; the 
 fish may thus be deprived of an opportunity of 
 securing the fly, or he may refuse it because of 
 its unnatural action. The natural insect, un- 
 hampered by any "string to it," drifts naturally 
 with the current, and the feeding fish which 
 makes for it, having accurately judged its po- 
 sition and pace, rarely misses. The artificial, 
 when drag is exerted upon it, dashes down-stream 
 at a speed always greater than that of the 
 current in which it is; besides the unnatural 
 action it acquires, it sometimes ceases to be a 
 floating fly, being dragged under the surface by 
 the pull of the line or leader in the swifter water. 
 Drag of this sort usually occurs when the line 
 or the leader must fall on the swift water be- 
 tween the angler and the spot he desires to 
 reach with the fly, and is not always avoidable. 
 Where possible, the line and leader should be 
 kept out of the swift water. 
 
 When casting to the eddies at the head of a 
 pool, the angler should assume a position on the 
 
SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 201 
 
 same side of the current as the eddy to be fished. 
 An effort should be made to place the line in the 
 water that is turning up-stream where the eddy 
 begins to take form. The fly falling farther 
 up will remain floating for a time — quite long 
 enough to be taken by a fish. If this eddy can- 
 not be reached from directly below, because of 
 the depth of water or on account of some ob- 
 stacle to clean casting, the fly may be thrown 
 across the current with the up-stream curve in 
 the leader. Where this is found necessary the 
 leader should be watched carefully and, before 
 it begins to exert a pull on the fly, the latter 
 should be retrieved quickly. The fly may be 
 taken from the water quietly, as it should be, 
 if a forward loop is thrown in the line similar to 
 that used in the switch cast. This action re- 
 moves the leader from the water with but little 
 disturbance, and, as the fly is about to leave the 
 surface, the backward cast will carry it clear, 
 practically without commotion. In the same 
 manner an eddy across stream may be fished 
 with little danger of a fish being put down by 
 the sight of a dragging fly. The method, how- 
 ever, caUs for keen alertness, and the angler 
 must have perfect and constant control of rod 
 and line. 
 
202 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 Swift water in either a rift or a run should 
 have no terrors for the angler who fears a drag- 
 ging fly, if he will first study the currents. Even 
 if he feels that a fish is occupying water that 
 can be reached only by risking drag, he must 
 always bear in mind that a fish is more likely to 
 come some distance to a natural-looking fly than 
 it is to take an unnatural one close to it. A 
 spot should be selected as close to the assumed 
 position of the fish as possible; but this choice 
 should always be guided by the necessity for 
 placing the fly on water swifter than that in 
 which the line and leader will fall. The "re- 
 tarded" drag which may set in after the fly 
 has been placed in swift water, has floated down- 
 stream until it is below the leader, and is held 
 back by it, need not be feared, because the fly 
 will have covered a considerable stretch in its 
 travel, and may then be retrieved. Sometimes 
 the sight of a dragging fly is more offensive to 
 the angler than it is to the fish; and there are 
 occasions when it will be taken, if its actions 
 have not been particularly rude. 
 
 As an aid to keeping the line afloat in swift 
 water, an application of deer's fat, or one of the 
 many preparations now made for the same pur- 
 pose, is recommended. It is sufficient to treat 
 
SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 203 
 
 three or four yards at the end of the line, and 
 the dressing should be rubbed down smoothly 
 afterward. Under no circumstances should any 
 dressing be applied to the leader, because, even 
 though it helps to float the fly, the gut will be 
 found to be annoyingly buoyant when the still 
 reaches are being fished, and will produce that 
 troublesome form of drag already described, and 
 which I consider the only form that unduly 
 taxes the ingenuity and patience of the expert 
 and even-tempered. My own opinion is that 
 the sight of the leader does not seriously deter 
 the fish from taking the fly in swift water. But 
 on smooth water a superbuoyant leader is a 
 nuisance and a plague and an abomination. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE POINT OF VIEW 
 
 The capture of a splendid ouananiche under 
 circumstances most trying is somewhere de- 
 scribed by a well-known writer, who, in his inim- 
 itable style, exhibits himself before his readers 
 running through his entire assortment of artificial 
 flies, first one and then another and still another, 
 and all without avail. We see him casting, cast- 
 ing, all impatience, determined, perhaps exasper- 
 ated. Surely some sort of lure is predicated. 
 But what ? Ah, he has it ! A live grasshopper. 
 Then follows the pursuit, the overtaking, and 
 the capture of the grasshopper, the impaling 
 of its unfortunate body, its proffer to the fish, 
 a desperate battle, and, finally, the contempla- 
 tion of the finest fish of the season safely landed. 
 The thrilling moment! Which was it? Why, 
 of all moments, that one in which he captured 
 the grasshopper! The story affords a fine illus- 
 tration of what I call the " point of view," but 
 until after the revelation that came to me with 
 my first success with the dry fly, I did not 
 
 fully appreciate its finer and deeper meanings. 
 
 204 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 205 
 
 Certain pleasurable excitement always attends 
 the taking of a good fish by the true angler. 
 Yet, after all, the quality of his gratification 
 should be measured by the method of capture. 
 In angling, as in all other arts, one's taste 
 and discrimination develop in proportion to his 
 opportunity to see, study, and admire the work 
 of greater artists. Even as a knowledge of the 
 better forms of music leads, eventually, to a 
 distaste for the poorer sorts, and as familiarity 
 wich the work of great painters leads to disgust 
 with the chromolithograph-like productions of 
 the dauber, so, too, does a knowledge of the 
 higher and more refined sorts of angling lead 
 just as surely to the ultimate abandonment of 
 the grosser methods. One who has learned to 
 cast the fly seldom if ever returns to the days 
 when he was content to sit upon the bank, or 
 the string-piece of a pier, dangling his legs over- 
 board while he watched his cork bobbing up 
 and down, indicating by its motions what might 
 be happening to the bunch of worms at the 
 hook end of the line; and, even as casting the 
 fly leads to the abandonment of the use of bait, 
 so, too, does the dry fly lead to the abandonment 
 of the wet or sunk fly. There can be no question 
 but that the stalking of a rising trout bears to 
 
2o6 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 the sport of angling the same relation to its 
 grosser forms as the execution of a symphony- 
 bears to the blaring of the local brass band. It 
 appeals to the higher and more aesthetic quali- 
 ties of the mind, and dignifies the pot-hunter's 
 business into an art of the highest and finest 
 character. 
 
 I am thus brought to the consideration of 
 the pot-hunter and the fish hog. Many angling 
 writers there be who have not hesitated, nor 
 have they been ashamed, to describe the taking 
 of great numbers of trout on separate and many 
 occasions. They feel, no doubt, that such nar- 
 ratives entitle them to consideration as author- 
 ities on the subject. I quote from one — who 
 shall be nameless — his bragging description of a 
 perfect slaughter of fish. After telling of twenty- 
 five or thirty trout taken during midday, nam- 
 ing at least a dozen flies he had found killing, 
 he concludes: "All my trout were taken from 
 the hook and thrown twenty-five feet to shore. 
 Thirty, my friend claimed, yet when I came to 
 count tails I found Jorty as handsome trout as 
 ever man wished to see, and all caught from six 
 in the evening until dark, about seven forty- 
 five. I had no net or creel, therefore had to 
 lead my trout into my hand. The friend at 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 207 
 
 whose house I was staying claims I lost more 
 than I caught by having them flounder off the 
 hook while trying to take them by the gills and 
 by flinging them ashore'' The Italics are mine. 
 And this fellow had the temerity to add that 
 some poor devil (an itinerant parson, he called 
 him) annoyed him by wading In and fishing 
 with a "stick cut from the forest." Had Wash- 
 ington Irving witnessed this fellow's fishing I 
 doubt that he would have been moved to write : 
 "There Is certainly something in angling that 
 tends to produce a gentleness of spirit and a 
 pure serenity of mind." 
 
 There are men calling themselves anglers! — 
 save the mark — who limit the number of fish 
 to the capacity of creel and pockets, and to whom 
 size means merely compliance with the law — a 
 wicked law, at that, i which permits the taking 
 of immature trout. It is not an inspiring sight 
 to see a valiant angler doing battle with a six- 
 inch trout, and, after brutally subjecting it to 
 capture, carefully measuring it on the butt of 
 his rod which he has marked for the purpose, 
 stretching it. If necessary, to meet the law's re- 
 quirements, and in some cases, if it does not 
 come up to the legal standard, rudely flinging it 
 away in disgust — to die as a result of Its mis- 
 
2o8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 handling. Happily, this tribe is not increasing, 
 because of the persistent efforts of true sports- 
 men who do not hesitate to denounce it publicly 
 whenever opportunity arises. Perhaps it is per- 
 missible to hope that the pot-hunter and the 
 fish hog may in time disappear, but, if this de- 
 sirable end is to be brought about, true sports- 
 men must not shun their duty but must wage 
 unceasing war against them. 
 
 Books on angling abound in word-pictures de- 
 scriptive of the strenuous battle of the hooked 
 fish to escape its captor, many such pictures 
 being so vividly drawn that the reader fairly 
 imagines himself in the writer's waders, his ex- 
 citement ending only when the captive is in the 
 net. It is meet, therefore, that some considera- 
 tion be given to the point of view of those anglers 
 who believe that great merit attaches to him 
 who lands a good fish on light tackle. 
 
 There can be no question of the excitement 
 attending the playing of a good trout nor of 
 the skill required in its handling, and this excite- 
 ment, in proportion to the ideas of the indi- 
 vidual, is a greater or less measure of the sport; 
 but, given the opportunity, it is my opinion 
 that, in the hands of a skilful angler, the rod 
 will kill nine out of ten fish hooked. Be that 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 209 
 
 as it may, can the degree of skill, even with the 
 lightest tackle, displayed in the landing of a 
 two or three pound trout (a fine fish on our 
 Eastern streams) bear comparison with that 
 required in the capture of a six-foot tarpon on 
 a six-ounce rod and a six-strand line? A six- 
 foot tarpon will weigh about one hundred and 
 twenty pounds, and the line will bear a dead- 
 weight strain of twelve pounds. Compare this 
 with the three-pound trout taken on a gut leader, 
 the weakest link in the angler's chain, which 
 will lift a weight of two or more pounds, and 
 the futility of beguiling oneself with the belief 
 that the trout has any advantage will be ap- 
 parent. 
 
 The playing of a trout is undeniably part of 
 the sport, but, however difficult one wishes to 
 make it, it is but secondary to the pleasure de- 
 rived from casting the fly and deluding that old 
 trout into mistaking it for a bit of living food. 
 It is this art, this skill, this study of the fish it- 
 self and its habits, that places dry fly fishing 
 for trout far ahead of all other forms of angling. 
 It has been said that there is no sport that re- 
 quires in its pursuit a greater knowledge of 
 the game, more skill, more perseverance, than 
 fly fishing, and that no sport holds its votaries 
 
2IO THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 longer. I am quite of this opinion. "There is 
 no genuine enjoyment in the easy achievement of 
 any purpose," and in fly fishing a full measure 
 of satisfaction is obtained only when the taking 
 of a single fish is accomplished under conditions 
 most difficult and trying. 
 
 The true angler is content only when he feels 
 that he has taken his fish by the employment 
 of unusual skill. The highest development of 
 this skill at the present state of the angler's art 
 is the dry fly method. I do not deny that there 
 are many anglers who have carried sunk fly and 
 even worm casting to a high degree of special- 
 isation and refinement; yet it seems to me — • 
 nay, more than that, it is a positive conviction 
 with me — that no manner of sunk fly or worm 
 or bait casting bears any sort of favourable 
 comparison to the manner of the dry fly. I 
 know that in this country, at least, the dry fly 
 man is accused by his sunk fly fellows of being 
 affected, dogmatic, fanatic. Yet it is not so. 
 The dry fly man has passed through all of the 
 stages of the angler's life, from the cane pole 
 and the drop-line to the split bamboo and the 
 fur-and-feather counterfeit of the midge fly. 
 He has experienced throes of delight each time 
 he advanced from the lower to the higher grade 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 211 
 
 of angler. I insist that I do not make my words 
 too strong when I say that in all of angling there 
 is no greater delight than that which comes to 
 the dry fly angler who simulates a hatch of flies, 
 and entices to the surface of the water a fish 
 lying hidden, unseen, in the stronghold of his 
 own selection. Let him who doubts put aside 
 his prejudice long enough to give the premier 
 method fair trial, and soon he will be found 
 applying for the highest degree of the cult — 
 "dry fly man." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 A FEW PATTERNS OF FLIES 
 
 The literature devoted to the subject of the 
 artificial fly is very extensive and informing, 
 and it is not my intention to add thereto except 
 for the purpose of describing a few flies that I 
 use in my own fishing. The tackle shops offer 
 almost countless patterns of flies of varied hues 
 and forms, and anglers can indulge their indi- 
 vidual tastes by choosing sizes, colours, and shapes 
 to suit their fancies. I have never attempted to 
 compute the number of artificial flies listed in 
 the dealers' catalogues and described in the 
 works of angling writers, but I think it must 
 run into the hundreds. There is, however, a 
 growing tendency toward restriction in the 
 number of special patterns used in actual fish- 
 ing, and in my own fishing I have reduced this 
 number to a very small one. 
 
 It is doubtless true that the fly fisher derives 
 no small part of his pleasure from the act of 
 selecting and purchasing flies. It is within the 
 
A FEW PATTERNS OF FLIES 213 
 
 experience of every fly fisher, I think, that, 
 under the influence of the memory of a certain 
 fish taken on a particular pattern of fly, he in- 
 cludes a dozen or two of the sort in his next 
 purchase. Perhaps the fly is a nondescript that 
 he may never again find successful, but, never- 
 theless, he adds it to his store. Angling friends 
 recommend their patterns to him, or some 
 special flies they found taking under certain 
 circumstances or over particular streams, and 
 these, too, he buys and puts away. Maybe 
 he may never use one of them, and in the end 
 he comes, perhaps, to feel, as does the philate- 
 list, great pleasure in the possession of a wor- 
 thy collection: he has the pride of ownership, 
 but no thought of putting his treasures to use. 
 Of course, there can be no reasonable objection 
 to fly collecting, and I can see how it may be- 
 come as fascinating an employment as stamp 
 or coin collecting. 
 
 Assuming that the angler is a believer in 
 close imitation, he will, of course, be content 
 only when he has all of the patterns which have 
 been created by the votaries of the theory; but 
 if he should be inclined to agree with me — that 
 a great part of the imitation must be produced 
 by the angler himself while actually fishing the 
 
214 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 stream — he will find that about ten patterns 
 will suffice under nearly all circumstances. 
 
 I give the dressings of eight patterns, although 
 I rarely use over six. If I were compelled to do 
 so, I could get along very well with one — the 
 Whirling Dun. Fishing the Brodhead through- 
 out the month of July, I used this fly exclusively, 
 and took fish every day except two. On three 
 separate occasions I used a different fly — at one 
 time a Pink Lady, at another a Mole, and at 
 still another a Silver Sedge. On each occasion 
 I took one fish with the selected fly, after which 
 I went back to the Whirling Dun, and continued 
 my fishing. I killed one or two fish each day, 
 the average for the month being very close to a 
 pound and a half. I returned many fish to the 
 water, and these averaged over ten inches. 
 Some days the fish were feeding, and some days 
 they were not. There was apparently little dif- 
 ference in the taking effect of the fly, except 
 that it was taken readily when it was delivered 
 properly, and never when it was not. 
 
 No matter how great the faith an angler has 
 in a single pattern, it will naturally be very 
 difficult for him to confine himself to its exclu- 
 sive use. So much of his sport depends upon its 
 delightful uncertainty, that if he does confine 
 
A FEW PATTERNS OF FLIES 215 
 
 himself to the use of the single pattern, he 
 will, of a consequence, be denied the pleasure 
 of congratulating himself upon the acumen 
 he has shown by the selection of the fly 
 which is taken, after the favourite has been 
 refused. 
 
 With the exception of the Pink Lady, the flies 
 described are all standard patterns — tied, how- 
 ever, according to my own preference. Anglers 
 who wish a more varied choice, one that in- 
 cludes one or two fancies, may add to the list 
 a Wickham's Fancy and, for use when the fish 
 are smutting, a small black gnat tied with a 
 glossy black hackle and no wings — a variety 
 that will often prove very effective when the 
 fish are feeding in that manner. A Marlow 
 Buzz may be included for use on windy days 
 when the larger land insects are blown upon 
 the water. 
 
 The flies commonly used by me, with their 
 dressings, are as follows: 
 
 Whirling Dun (Blue) 
 
 Wings. — Starting or duck, medium light. 
 Body. — Water-rat or mole fur; two turns of flat gold tin- 
 sel around hook at end of body. 
 Legs. — Glossy ginger or light brown cock's hackle. 
 Tail. — Three whisks of same. 
 
2i6 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 Pale Evening Dun (Watery Dun) 
 
 Wings. — Light starling. 
 
 Body. — Lemon mohair lightly dressed. 
 
 Legs. — Glossy barred Plymouth Rock cock's hackle. 
 
 Tail. — Two or three whisks of same. 
 
 Pink Lady 
 
 Wings. — Medium starling or duck. 
 Body. — Pale pink floss ribbed with flat gold tinsel. 
 Legs. — Ginger or light reddish-brown hackle. 
 Tail. — Three whisks of same. 
 
 Gold-Ribbed Hare's Ear 
 
 Wings. — Medium starling or duck. 
 
 Body. — Hare's fur ribbed with flat gold tinsel body, 
 
 not too heavy. 
 Legs. — Hare's fur tied on with silk. 
 Tail. — Two or three rather long whisks, grey mallard. 
 
 Flight's Fancy 
 
 Wings. — Light starling or duck. 
 
 Body. — Pale yellow floss ribbed with flat gold tinsel. 
 
 Legs. — Ginger hackle. 
 
 Tail. — Two or three whisks of same. 
 
 The body of this fly will turn green when wet, 
 which is nothing against it, however. 
 
 Silver Sedge 
 
 Wings. — Rather dark starling. 
 
 Body. — ^White floss ribbed with flat silver tinsel. 
 
 Legs. — Pale ginger hackle. 
 
 Tail. — ^Two or three whisks of same. 
 
 The body of this fly will turn a greyish-blue 
 
 when wet, but the change does not affect its taking 
 
 qualities. 
 
A FEW PATTERNS OF FLIES 217 
 
 Willow 
 
 Wings. — None. 
 
 Body. — Light blue fur, mole or fox, ribbed with light 
 
 yellow silk. 
 Legs. — Glossy white or transparent hackle. 
 Tail. — Two whisks of same. 
 
 Mole 
 
 Wings. — Medium starling or duck. 
 
 Body. — Light mole fur lightly dressed and tightly wound. 
 Legs. — Purplish-brown (dyed), hackle tied palmer-wise. 
 Tail. — Three or four whisks of same. 
 
 The standard pattern of this fly is tied with light 
 brown woodcock wings. 
 
 It is advisable that each of the patterns be 
 tied on hooks of different sizes — Nos. 10, 12, 14, 
 and 16 will suffice — because the size of the fly is 
 often important, particularly when the water is 
 very low and clear. 
 
 If a greater aid is required in floating the fly 
 (barring the use of paraffin) other than a stiff 
 hackle at the shoulder, I would recommend 
 that a short-fibred hackle be tied on at the 
 shoulder and carried around and down the body 
 to the tail, the fibres being cut off close to the 
 body after tying. The effect of this dressing 
 will be to make the fly float better, particularly 
 after some use, and after the points of the 
 longer shoulder hackles have been submerged. 
 
21 8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 
 
 The short fibres along the body, by intercept- 
 ing some Hght and permitting some to pass 
 through, will help to produce the effect of trans- 
 parency or translucency of the natural insect, 
 which effect would be particularly noticeable 
 upon flies where quill is used for the body. The 
 use of this hackle can be dispensed with in the 
 case of those flies where fur or mohair is used for 
 the body — a few fibres picked out with a needle 
 producing much the same appearance and effect. 
 It may be the experience of other anglers who 
 have experimented with the artificial fly in at- 
 tempts to produce one that would cock read- 
 ily and maintain a good balance on the water, 
 that one tied with the wings leaning rather 
 more forward than is the present practice, 
 offers the nearest solution to these difficulties. 
 My own experience is that flies tied in this 
 manner sit beautifully upon the water, but I 
 cannot say that they cock any more frequently 
 than those tied with upright wings. I would 
 suggest that the angler tie a few flies with the 
 wings tilted forward at an angle of about 120°, 
 and try them. If nothing else is accomplished, 
 the experiment may lead to a development in 
 the form of the fly which will enable us all to 
 some day take the one "big fish." 
 
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