SOME DRY FLY MAXIMS. 19 



foul-hooked ? My observations on this class of rise would lead me to 

 believe that the fish moved to the fly in the ordinary manner, but 

 that something arose to excite his mistrust, and that he closed his 

 mouth while the impetus of his rise broke the water, making the 

 angler think that it was a real rise, so that he struck, and on his 

 striking the hook took a light hold on the outside — a hold seldom 

 effective, though most fishermen have landed fish hooked in such a 

 way. I have generally found in such cases that a smaller hook has 

 produced a more confident rise, and my experience would not lead me 

 to endorse Mr. Halford's view that the use of a 000 hook handicaps 

 the angler very heavily. It may do so with the heavy Houghton 

 water fish, but I have not found it a severe handicap with the smaller 

 trout — lib. to 2ilb. — of the upper Test and similar waters. 



A very keen and expert dry fly fisherman, the late Mr. Harry 

 Maxwell, one of the best of friends and anglers, once showed me a 

 method of taking fish lying with their tails against a wire fencing 

 that crossed the Test at right-angles, the wire moreover being barbed. 

 I was fishing in Hurstbourne Park, and he was accompanying me, 

 as he often did, with his field-glass. Below the "cascade" a four or 

 five-stranded barbed wire fence went straight across the water. Just 

 above it, in mid-stream, in the stickle, a plump, transparent-looking Test 

 fish of about i^lb. had taken up his position, and was boldly taking 

 every dun within reach. My friend told me to catch him, and I said 

 at once I did not know how to do it without getting hung up. He then 

 explained his dodge, which may be carried out as follows : — Having 

 waded in below the fish, take some loose coils of line off the reel 

 in the left hand, then cast well above, and let the dry well-cocked fly 

 float down to him. If he accepts it and comes down under the fence 

 slack off the loose coils, get up to the fence as quickly as possible, pass 

 the rod under and over, and then you are free to play the trout below 

 you. If, on the other hand, he refuses the fly, do not attempt to 

 recover the line in the usual manner or you will inevitably be hung up. 

 Simply lower your rod point to the water, and then the quiet drag of the 

 stream will bring your cast and fly slowly up and over the fence, 

 even although the fly had floated a foot or two down-stream and under 

 the wire. The action is so slow and even that there is no chance of being 



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