DRY FLY FISHING ON ALL WATERS 71 



believe that any trout stream can be claimed solely 

 as a wet fly stream. 



As an instance of this, during the summer of 1905 

 several well-known wet fly fishermen staying at Llan- 

 gammarch Wells Hotel, on the Irfon, a beautiful Welsh 

 river, had for some weeks given up all attempts to catch 

 trout, and, being invited over by the host of that ex- 

 cellent hotel, I converted every fisherman there to the 

 usefulness of the dry fly method by killing fourteen 

 fine fish on my first afternoon, and seventeen as good 

 fish the following day, fishing with my dry fly pattern 

 of the Stone Fly (see Plate XIII.). 



On the lovely little Sid, in Devonshire, just as 

 on the waters of the Irfon, on the Otter as on 

 the waters of the Welsh Wye, on the Lambourne as 

 on the waters of the Coquet, or the Eden, or the 

 Derbyshire Wye, the dry fly will, in June, July, and 

 August, be as effective as is the wet fly in March and 

 April. It is on the correct choice of either method 

 that the greatest success depends. When the trout 

 are being taken freely by the dry fly method, the wet 

 fly fisherman would be well advised to adopt that 

 method, and vice versa. For dead or perfectly smooth 

 water, especially later in the year, the dry fly method of 

 fishing is without doubt the better. 



Take the Wye about Bakewell, the Dove in the 

 neighbourhood of the Dove Holes, the Itchen above 

 Bishopstoke, the Otter on the Rolle Waters, etc., on 

 a fine July day, when the water is as clear as crystal 

 and the surface as smooth as glass : it is then useless 



