A GOOD WET MAY-FLY. 39 



cast; cocking tlie fly; not allowing the fly to drag;* striking from 

 the reel ; and playing the fish down stream. A fact worth re- 

 membering is that when the sun is low the shadows are long. 



The May-fly Season. — In favourable seasons May-flies 

 (Fig. 28) appear in incredible quantities. They come not from 

 caddis, as is very commonly believed, but from larvae not very 

 unlike the larvse of the Stone-fly. They can easily be found by 

 digging in sandy mud by the river any warm day in spring and 

 summer; and I need hardly say that, fished in the same manner 

 as the Creeper (see Chapter III.), they are an equally deadly bait. 

 In the North Country the Stone-fly is often called the May-fly. 



On Hampshire streams the May-fly usually appears between 

 the 4th and 10th of June. If 

 the weather is very hot, the flies 

 hatch out in myriads, and the 

 May-fly season is a short and a 

 bad one; for the trout have so 

 many natural flies to feed on 

 that they choose only those that 

 take their fancy (usually not 

 yours), and soon get glutted with 

 flies. If, on the other hand, the 

 flies hatch out fairly slowly, and ^j^ 28. Green Drake, or May-fly. 

 the weather is dull, with occa- 

 sional showers, most extraordinary sport may be had with the 

 trout. As a rule, the season lasts from ten to twenty days. 



For a few days before any May-fly are visible a slight hatch 

 commences under water, and the trout seize all the flies before 

 they come to the surface. Trout will then often take the 

 artificial fly fished wet. I do not know a better pattern for the 

 purpose than that shown in Fig. 29. I had it carefully dressed 

 to my own ideasf by "Warner & Sons, and partly based 



* This is an axiom devoutly believed in by Hampshire dry-fly fishers, but I have 

 frequently known trout, which ignored a dry fly drifted without drag several times 

 over them, rise boldly when a quivering motion was given to the rod, and the fly 

 seemed to struggle on the water. 



t Straw body ribbed with gold twist and painted with one coat of French polish. 

 Tail, two whisks of brown mallard. Legs, speckled Florican hackle, over a turn of 

 pale ginger hackle. Wings, four hackle tips— two long and two short— from a 

 blue Andalusian cock, dyed a yellowish-green by being dipped in onion dye. 



