SOME CONTROVERSIES 137 



difficulty of the method. It is often a hard job 

 to make your fly sink when you want it to. It is 

 always a hard job to be sure when a fish has taken 

 it under water in time for a strike to have the desired 

 effect. The chalk stream as a rule does not help 

 you to a conclusion as does a rapid mountain river 

 when you are casting upstream. There any stoppage 

 of the line is marked enough to be visible to the eye 

 and often perceptible to the hand, while the rapid 

 movement of tlie fish very likely causes a disturbance 

 in the water which is immediately noticed. But 

 the chalk stream has not enough pace for the passage 

 of the line to be of much help, while the fish, being 

 more or less in a position to intercept the fly just 

 by opening his mouth, possibly causes no disturbance 

 in the water at all. The minor tactician must make 

 up his mind to be content with very inadequate 

 indications of a rise, and he must expect, if things 

 are not too favourable, to miss a good many fish 

 which certainly take his fly and give him a chance of 

 hooking them if only he could take advantage of it. 

 One does get a sort of instinct as to a rise with 

 practice, but I am never quite sure how I detect one 

 unless there is a definite commotion of the water 

 (what you have to look for was recently celebrated 

 in the Fly Fishers' Club Journal as a " wink under 

 water"; it describes it very well) or unless I can 

 actually see the fish. The last is the condition most 



