8 SOUTH COUNTRY TROUT STREAMS 



wind blowing, though I have occasionally killed 

 a fairly good trout in this way on a calm day and 

 in water ordinarily well adapted to the dry fly. 

 What the trout take the alder or Wickham for 

 when fished in this style it is not easy to say : 

 it has often been said that they cannot very well 

 take it for any natural insect in the imago or sub- 

 imago stage in that it in no wise resembles or 

 imitates any known fly. I should add that a large 

 March brown dressed on a i to 4 hook is some- 

 times quite as good as, or even better than, the 

 large alder for this style of fishing. The method 

 is a telling one on several of the Hertfordshire 

 streams, such as the upper Lea and the Mimram. 

 I should say it would kill good trout at times on 

 the Hampshire chalk streams, too, and on waters 

 like the Pang and Lambourne, as well as on many 

 parts of the Kennet. On the Devon and Somer- 

 set streams the ordinary wet fly style up or down 

 stream is far preferable. Indeed, the big alder, 

 Wickham, or March brown fished down stream as 

 a sunk fly may almost be regarded as a dry fly 

 water device, only practiced in a few southern 

 counties. I have repeatedly tried it in the Derby- 

 shire Wye, and never with the least degree of 

 success. 



The large fly dressed on hooks Nos. i, 2, 3, 4, or 

 even 5, is also used for late evening fishing on a 

 good many trout streams east of Devonshire, and 

 it then commonly takes the form of one of the 

 species of the sedge fly. Some anglers use it as a 

 wet or sunk fly, others as a dry one, and very 

 deadly it occasionally proves among heavy trout, 

 which rarely look at any winged insect in the day- 

 time except during the short May-fly season. The 



