42 ANGLING FOR GAME FISH. 



Spent Gnat made is pattern B* in Mr. Halford's "Floating 

 Flies, and How to Dress Them." It can be fished either wet 

 or dry. Spent Gnats are sometimes tied with the hook lying 

 flat with the wings. This is a great mistake : the hook should 

 swim in the usual manner, and not on its side, when the wings 

 are extended on the water. 



As regards the use of the dry May-fly, I have little to add 

 to the remarks on pages 37 and 38. It is well to have a 

 good supply of artificials, so that as soon as a fly gets wet it 

 can be taken o:ff, stuck in one's cap to dry, and another 

 put in its place. In bright, hot weather the fly should be 

 dressed rather small. On some days the fish prefer a fly which 

 is half sunk to one wholly wet or dry. When the wet fly 

 fails, try the dry; when that fails, try the semi-dry. When 

 few or no fish are rising, try the wet fly well sunk and drawn 

 slowly. If that does not succeed, cast a dry fly at the end 

 of a long line on to the river and let it drift down stream, 

 under your own or the opposite bank, and walk after it. 



After all the May-flies have disappeared, go on using the 

 wet fly — Spent Gnat for preference — for a week or ten days, 

 and you may be rewarded. When the trout will not look at 

 the artificial May-fly, try an Alder or a Red Spinner, and, fail- 

 ing that, a Silver Sedge. 



Wet-fly Fislliug is, in its way, quite as scientific as using 

 the floating fly. In the first place, it requires a more thorough 

 knowledge of the haunts of the fish. Then, again, as trout 

 often take a fly under water very quietly and without breaking 

 the surface, it is frequently a most difficult matter to detect 

 the rises. It is, I am certain, no uncommon thing for chalk- 

 stream trout to take a sunk fly and reject it without the angler 

 being any the wiser. In moorland streams, where the current 

 is swift and the fish are rather underfed than otherwise, 

 the fish dash at a fiy and a pluck is felt; but there is no 

 way by which an angler can tell if a well-fed chalk-stream trout 



* It is dressed thus: Wings, four blue Andalusian cock hackles, set on flat. 

 Head, bronze peacock harl. Shoulder hackle, grey partridge. Ribbing hackle, 

 badger cock. Body, white floss silk, ribbed with an unstripped strand of peacock, 

 which is cinnamon-coloured at root, and dark at point, the dark portion being 

 worked at the tail end. Whisk, brown mallard. 



