Getting Out the Fly Books 



seems sometimes to be the result of simple 

 curiosity or possibly, of a halting between 

 hunger and a timidity born of experience. 

 For instance, casting over a pool in which 

 the fish were easily seen, I have had a pair 

 lying near each other rise cautiously, to 

 inspect each new fly ; rarely would they 

 come twice to the same one. The keen- 

 eyed gaffer, in his wrath, as they circled 

 around each and retired, exclaimed, " Con- 

 found them! They don't mean to take 

 it ; they start from the bottom with their 

 mouths shut." After a fish has run the 

 gantlet of a score or two of pools it be- 

 comes very knowing, and few flies will 

 move it. I recall a success with a fly tied 

 with the avowed purpose of presenting an 

 outre combination which would certainly 

 be unfamiliar. It is hard, as has been said, 

 to be sure whether, in such cases, it be 

 curiosity or chastened greed that excites 

 the fish. In some cases it must certainly 

 be the latter. For instance, for a week 

 the many and tantalizingly visible occu- 

 pants of the "Hospital" pool ill-omened 

 name resisted all the blandishments of 

 my friend and myself, when, one evening, 

 unexpectedly, they began rising very cau- 

 tiously, following the fly as it went down 

 stream, and only touching it as it was be- 



19 



