THE DRY v JR SEA-TROUT. 



THE DRY-FLY ME'i_^ of angling, is, I am disposed 

 to think, of general application. I tried it in the 

 interior of Canada, on a river where I was assured a floating 

 fly had never been used, and the Dolly Varden trout rise to 

 it with avidity. I spent some time by the river and, strange 

 to say, never noticed a fly on it. The wet patterns that 

 killed best were small salmon flies that had no natural pro- 

 totypes. Yet the fish rose to the red quill, olive dun. and 

 blue upright with the ease and certainty of practised hands, 

 very rarely missing. 



Bly latest application of the art was to sea-trout. These 

 sporting fish take the wet fly so freely that one rarely thinks 

 of mounting anything else. The conditions in which they 

 are caught lend themselves more freely to that method of 

 angling. It is usually swift-flowing water, too turbulent for 

 the light bark of a dry fly to travel many yards before being 

 swamped. I was fishing such a river late last season. 

 There were plenty of trout in the pools, but the water was 

 so light and the sun so brilliant that they rose very badly, 

 and only a few herring-sized fish were netted. I mounted 

 the finest gut, reduced the flies from three to one, but it 

 made little difference. Then I tried the dry fly, fishing tne 

 pool up from the bottom. 



The fly had no sooner touched the water than it was down 

 to where I stood, so rapid was the current. In the second 

 or third swift passage a trout took it, making light of the 

 flying shot it entailed, and darted across stream, firmly 

 hooked. A second soon joined him in the creel. Then a b:'g 

 fellow entered the lists as competitor amongst the smaller 

 fry. and half emptied my reel before I could stop him. Un- 

 fortimately, he went down a swift rapid, where it was im- 

 possible to hold him, and smashed me on a long run. 

 Another, hooked on a stouter gut point, was prevented from 

 embarking on a similar career, and weighed a pound and a 

 quarter. These fish took a 00 March brown ; then I rounded 

 the corner of a dull interval by mounting an iron blue. It 

 acted like magic, and brought up fish after fish. It is diffi- 

 cult to imagine anything less liie sea-trout flies than the iron* 

 blue. It may have been its dissimilarity that formed the- 

 attraction. Whatever the explanation, it afforded me a fine 

 piece of sport, and was instrumental in securing an excellent 

 creel, I strongly recommend the use of the dry fly to sea- 

 trout anglers as a change method. COREIGEEN. 



