130 AN OPEN CREEL 



Even higher, too, do we aim, as the next paving- 

 stone attests. There are, so the really great ones tell 

 us, rises and rises. The complete purist will announce 

 whether that ring thirty yards away is caused by a 

 sizeable trout or a small one ; and if it be a small one, 

 he will, of course, leave it alone. We are going to do 

 that, too nay, more, we propose to go further into 

 the matter and discriminate between sizeable fish, 

 confining our attack to male trout over one pound and 

 females over two pounds. Also we are to make but one 

 cast over each trout. Inasmuch as we shall know 

 exactly what fly he is taking, and shall have a duplicate 

 thereof (copied from life) on our line, the one perfect 

 cast will be enough. If he takes, it is well ; if he does 

 not, it is well also, perhaps better, and we shall go on 

 to the next. Thus we shall escape the charge (so 

 humbling to the novice who is showing the same fly to 

 a fish for the third time) of "worrying the trout." 

 Indeed, not only shall we escape the charge, we shall 

 be in a position to say a word in season ourselves. 

 The evenness of the eighth paving-stone, and the 

 accuracy with which it is placed, prove that we are 

 mindful of this last duty. 



After the eighth come other stones, most of them 

 unsymmetrical in outline and ragged in order. They 

 represent resolutions even loftier in tendency than any 

 that have yet been made. It is well, of course, to cast 

 but once over your feeding fish, but there may be 

 circumstances in which even that once is too much. 

 If, for example, he is taking something below the 

 surface, it is doubtful whether the dry-fly code permits 

 fishing for him. Subaqueous food is not floating food, 



