Trout Flies. ■ 151 



them, and began with my usual system of sinking 

 the fly. After a very few casts I got hold of some- 

 thing very heavy, and this something was not long in 

 telling me that I had better look out. Up he went 

 at a fine pace, taking out my line ; down he came 

 again faster than ever ; but I landed him after a 

 good struggle — S^lbs. I soon got another, and 

 another, and another, hardly moving from the spot 

 where I first began to fish. About one o'clock, the 

 keeper came to me and asked if I had any sport. I 

 was then fast in a good fish, which he landed for me. 

 On opening my basket I shall not easily forget his 

 look of astonishment. " Well," he said, " I could 

 not have believed it. Here, we have been fishing 

 all the morning with the cross-lines, and not got a 

 fish ; and his lordship has sent down express for 

 a dish of trout for his dinner." "Take mine," 

 and I handed over to him three brace of, as he 

 said, " as fine fish as ever had been taken in that 

 water." 



The fish stopped rising about four, but I got 

 one or two more in the evening with a large 

 Alder. 



In giving these instances of killing fish with the 

 drowned fly, I am only relating my experience of 

 what may be done in that way. Plenty of fish I 

 have killed with the floating fly also ; but the May 

 fly is a difficult fly to imitate well, and I have a 



