38 Wet- Fly Fishing 



keep your flies too near the surface, or 

 cast too often. 



The wet-fly fisherman who, under such 

 circumstances, still continues to sink his 

 flies (and many do), forgets that his flies 

 may actually be passing underneath the 

 trout he is trying to lure, and nothing can 

 be more absurd ! Eapid casting with as 

 short a line as can reach the trout, is the 

 game to play in sluggish or dead water, 

 when trout are fairly " on the hop," and 

 indeed almost anywhere else. There are 

 times when the man who can fish the dry 

 fly as well as the wet, scores ; especially in 

 sluggish waters, or portions of waters. 



I confess that I do not love to fish small 

 and still rivers which are so uncertain, and 

 where it is either a feast or a famine. For, 

 as it is less frequently the case, that in these 

 slow running, deep and narrow rivers, trout 

 are rising well ; when you do so find them, 

 you should be able "to score." To this 

 end you must work hard, your rod never 

 idle for a second. 



It is quite a pleasure to me to leave 

 behind the fly-fishing of sluggish Scottish 

 waters (or parts of waters), and to enter 

 upon the fishing of any really typical 

 Scottish water, with the wet fly. How 



