CLEAR WATERS 



like contempt. But in the western streams he is a 

 well-developed lusty veteran, the tyrant and the bully 

 of the few square yards of water over which he rules. 

 As I have already intimated, in the Devonshire Avon 

 the herring-sized fish, going about three to the 

 pound, are far more numerous than in most Devonshire 

 streams. This evidence of good feeding — for the look 

 of the river hardly suggests this standard — used to be 

 attributed, whether truly or not, to the presence of 

 the fresh-water shrimp. 



It is needless to say that the tail fly in up-stream, 

 clear-water fishing kills two or three fish for one taken 

 on the dropper, or droppers if a couple are used — not 

 altogether advisable, I think. It alone reaches many 

 of the far-away fish, and gets into brushy nooks, par- 

 ticularly where the water is shallow, and a slight but 

 significant enough wave is the glad sign of a fastening 

 fish. The trout at this season and in such places, if 

 they come at all, nearly always mean business, and 

 are generally of the better type. Where a screen of 

 alder brush dips into a gravelly run, with httle recesses 

 here and there, into which, standing well below, you 

 can curl your tail fly sideways, are perhaps the spots 

 which on these bright early summer days upon the 

 Avon come back to me as the most prolific of all upon 

 the varied surface of this beautiful stream. And as 

 tail fly upon the Avon at this season there is nothing 

 like, certainly nothing better than, a good old-fashioned 

 Devonshire red palmer — not a c6ch-y-bonddu, but 

 a rather fuU red hackle with a plain body, and with 

 for choice a few turns of gold twist round it. Four 

 varieties of the red palmer, as used by the oldest and 

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