76 PRACTICAL LESSONS IN RIVER ANGLING. 



When you cast your flies across the stream, keep them 

 in gentle motion to prevent the trouts from perceiving 

 the cheat ; if you give them too long a time they dis- 

 cover it, or if they take it, when they perceive the 

 fraud, they quickly disengage themselves. If it is a 

 slow-running water, let your flies sink a little as you 

 draw them towards you." 



If a trout may be observed to rise at any insect 

 that may chance to be on the water, let the artificial fly 

 be offered him, by throwing it, not directly over the 

 spot, but about a yard higher up the stream ; and if 

 he is inclined to rise again, he will probably meet it 

 half way. A dexterous angler, however, who can 

 throw a fly within a hair's breadth of the spot he 

 wishes, will cast as near to the trout as possible, so as 

 not to alarm him. 



The beginner will often be tantalised with trout 

 rising at his fly without taking it, and if any of these 

 chance to be pricked with the hook and get away, they 

 will not again rise readily at the artificial fly, any more 

 than a bird will allow itself to be caught twice in a 

 fowler's net. In such cases I think there is some- 

 thing in the smell, or rather the want of smell in the 

 artificial fly, more than in its appearance, which deters 

 the fish ; for I have often, in such cases, succeeded 

 in raising and hooking pricked and shy trout which 

 refused my fly, by putting a small caddis-worm, the 

 body of a large gnat, or other insect on the hook. Sir 

 H. Davy, however, says, " I have known very shy fish 

 refuse even a hook baited with the natural fly." 



In striking a fish that rises at the fly, some skill is 



