335 



CHALK-STREAM FISHING WITH THE DRY 

 FL Y, AND MA Y-FL Y FISHING. 



CHALK-STREAM FISHING WITH THE DRY FLY. 



THAT different rivers require different styles of fishing, or, in 

 other words, that the highest art as practised in one locality 

 is occasionally almost useless in another, may now, I think, be 

 laid down as an angling axiom ; certainly it is a rule recognised 

 in practice by,, at any rate, most fly fishers of experience. On 

 one river trout will take the fly ' wet,' on another it is almost 

 essential to use it ' dry ; ' whilst on some waters, like the well- 

 known lakes of Westmeath, for example, the only time when 

 anything worth calling sport is to be had is whilst the * fly is up,' 

 that is, during the season of the appearance of the May fly, and 

 then the lure must be the natural insect itself used with a blow 

 line. The extent to which these differences may exist in dif- 

 ferent streams is often only found out by the fly fisher through 

 the disagreeable experience of empty baskets, on first visiting a 

 new locality. Many and many a time has an angler, skilled in 

 all the niceties of trout fishing in his own Highland streams, 

 been utterly baffled when he first essayed his luck with the 

 well-fed, not to say pampered, fish of Test, Itchen, or Kennet. 

 And it is not difficult to find the explanation. The character 

 of the clear chalk streams of the south is entirely different from 

 that of the rocky mountain rivers and peat-stained torrents of 

 the Highlands, and consequently the habits of the fish are also 

 widely different. The chalk-streams are wonderfully prolific 

 in insect life, far and away beyond anything of which the trout 

 of Scotland or Ireland have for the most part any experience. 



