SPRING. 39 



provided he be content to make it, so far as the trout are 

 concerned, a day of.small things. 



March is, upon general trout streams, the first month in 

 which fly-fishing may be hankered after in real earnest. A 

 tempestuous, rude month it may be, but the weather is 

 generally for the greater portion hopeful ; for though the 

 cold strengthens with the lengthening of the days, and 

 gales prevail, there are glimpses of sunshine, and intervals 

 of warmth which betoken the reviving year. The flies 

 dance into life under the grateful influence, and the 

 trout are on the look out. Later in the year you will 

 have to ring the changes upon your stock of flies, 

 which is generally three times as large as it need 

 be. In March you may ordinarily rely upon the ever 

 useful March-brown, the Blue-dun, the Olive-dun, Red 

 Spinner, and the Marlow buzz alias Coch-y-bondu. Even 

 at Lady-day the aspect of the river-side and its surround- 

 ings is bare and wintry ; but when you take a short cut 

 through the plantation to avoid the dead water, and reach 

 the long rippling piece that murmurs down from the bridge, 

 you will trample upon primroses and violets, and the little 

 celandine. And the birds seem to join in a special carol of 

 welcome to the March angler, and wish him the good 

 fortune which often falls to his lot. 



In April do not discard the above-named flies, but add to 

 them the Grannom, Yellow-dun, Hawthorn, and Sedge, and 

 cleave to them so long as trout-fishing lasts. April has 

 proved to me invariably the month of months for trout in 

 England and Wales, and would, I can fain believe, have 

 proved so in Scotland and Ireland had I been able to 

 subject them to the same test. If trout have feelings, they 

 must, like the observer of nature abroad in the fields at 

 this season, feel that it is good to be alive. They come 



