TROUT FISHING IN MOUNTAIN STREAMS. 119 



water would probably be the choice of the mountain-stream fisher. 

 These are most important factors in the making of a full basket. 

 So, also, is lightness of his cast and the angler's right choice of 

 flies ; but the most important of all is the appetite of the fish. The 

 Trout's appetite is the unknown quantity-in fishing. If Trout took 

 their meals regularly, fishing, in losing all its uncertainty, would lose 

 half its pleasure. On the Trout's appetite depends the time of the 

 take, and that is the great mystery of every trout river. It comes on 

 perhaps twice in a day, and lasts sometimes but an hour, ending as 

 abruptly as it began. While the take lasts every duffer can take 

 Trout ; the true angler is he who can tempt the fish when they 

 are satiated with food, or but half hungry. 



In trout fishing, from the comparatively facile to the impossible 

 is a quick transition. For instance : the stream is a deepish one, 

 rolling along with countless ripples beneath a sheltering bank ; at 

 your feet stretches a strip of gently sloping shingle. As you cast 

 up and across (with consummate skill) the fly sweeps down to you 

 again. Again, a foot or two higher this time ; and again. But no 

 eddy breaks the dark flow of silent water. 



Take the same conditions, ten minutes later. You have left 

 the pool. In your place stands an unwelcome object another 

 fisherman. The preparations he makes at once excite your 

 contempt and dislike. Obviously ignorant of the laws observed 

 by every well-regulated angler, he stands for some minutes on the 

 high bank and makes no attempt to conceal himself. At length, 

 with an ugly cast of his line, he throws his fly some yards below 

 him. A fish rises. The stranger's line is slack and he deserves to 

 lose that fish. You sincerely hope (of course, in the interests of 

 true art) that he will lose it ! Nothing of the kind. That fish's 



