150 Smaller Fly Takers. Chapt. xi. 



but not behind tliem ; and as you know that their hacks are con- 

 sequently all turned the same way, that is down stream, and they 

 cannot see with their tails, it stands to reason that if you want to 

 approach them unobserved, your best chance of doing so is from 

 below them in the stream ; and this is why the most successful 

 fly-fishermen endeavour always to approach a bit of water from 

 below, and take the best fish throwing up stream, and pulling 

 down towards them, or rather just keeping the line taut while 

 the stream brings their fly down to them. The most convenient 

 plan is to fish a river upwards, that is, to commence fishing at the 

 lowest part of the river you mean to fish over, and to walk up- 

 wards as you fish. This saves retracing steps, as you stalk to the 

 foot of each pool or run your fish. The simplest way to fish any 

 particular bit of water with a fly is to approach crouching, and, 

 kneeling on one knee so far off from the bank that you can only 

 just see and command a little bit of the water, throw your fly 

 Straight across, keep your line just taut and no mole, and let the 

 stream carry it down and round towards you as quietly as it will, 

 without any pulling from you, and you thus fish first the water 

 where you are most likely to be seen; repeat the process a yard or 

 two higher each time, carefully edging nearer and nearer the 

 while, till you find yourself throwing straight up the stream close 

 under your own bank. These are, of course, only general instruc- 

 tions for thorough!} fishing over water, and cannot be held applic- 

 able in all cases; for differently exposed, differently running, 

 waters require to be fished differently, and not a little depends on 

 the generalship displayed in properly availing yourself of every 

 advantage of ground in approaching the enemy's positions 



Another argument against fly-fishing from above is, that if you 



throw your fly downwards, and pull it towards you, you will pull 



it in the most unnatural way, for no natural fly ever floated up 



bream. 1 know that fish are caught in this way sometimes, but it 



is not g 1 fishing, and will not pay as a rule. 



l'l\ fishing, it will be observed, is in this respect the contrary 

 to spinning, the rule in the latter case being to pull the bail more 

 or less against the stream. Ami the -ami' rule obtains more or less 

 in salmon fly-fishing, but then that is not properlj fly-fishing, 

 though commonly so called, because no mortal can tell you the 

 entomological specimen of which a salmon fly is a representation. 



