CHAPTER V 

 DRY-FLY FISHING 



WHEN one sees a number of salmon side by side 

 as they often lie in the tail of a pool and watches 

 a regular salmon-fly pass over them or past their 

 very noses without any attention or motion on 

 their part, except to move away if the fly or leader 

 comes too close, one is tempted to wonder if these 

 fish will really take a fly at all under these condi- 

 tions. And yet it is these very fish at this time 

 which will furnish the best of sport. For some 

 reason they are in a state of mind where the wet 

 fly does not attract them at all. Perhaps they 

 have reverted to the mental state of parr, taking 

 insects off the surface. Let a real fly or a small 

 butterfly float over them and see how often one 

 will rise and suck it in. It was observing this 

 which made me try a dry fly, with not much success 

 at first, because I did not know how to use it, 

 but I soon made a proper cast, quite by accident, 

 and raised a fish. The fly was a Greenwell's 

 Glory No. 14 hook. I soon observed that the fish 

 rose on some kinds of casts, but never on others, 



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