Methods and Equipment 343 



The habits of " rising trout " are apparently 

 governed by their environment. In rapid streams 

 ihey rise fiercely, seizing the fly with a dash and 

 ejecting it at once when they find out its inedible 

 nature, showing their sense of taste to be acute. 

 Under such conditions the strike must be im- 

 mediate, but gentle, and at the first sight of the 

 swirl made by the eager fish ; if you wait for the 

 " pluck " or feel of the bite, you will, nine times 

 in ten, lose your fish; he has ejected the steel 

 and gone on his way, unsuspecting and uncon- 

 cerned. If, perchance, this same trout passes 

 down-stream to live a few days in a quiet and 

 relatively deep pool, his entire nature seems to 

 change ; he is now a sedate, sober fish, feeding 

 daintily on the insects falling constantly from the 

 overhanging alders, rising very slowly to the fly 

 and taking it leisurely, then turning a slow tail, 

 and only feeling or tasting the non-edible thing 

 it has mouthed after the turn of the wrist has fas- 

 tened it into the flesh. Such fish are a glory to 

 the slow striker. Hence, on the one hand, if you 

 see the swirl made by the mad rush of a trout in 

 the boil of a rapid, strike at once ; on the other, 

 go slowly, take a moment for consideration before 

 the turn of the wrist is made, or else your fish 



