38 THE SCIENCE OF DRY FLY FISHING. 



Nottingham one, which may injure it, and in any case a 

 jerk can do no good to the rod. When you have no 

 spear, place the butt of the rod on the ground, and let the 

 upper part rest against the body between the arms. You have, 

 as before, your hands at liberty. Now the rod is standing 

 up out of any danger, and we must look carefully at the 

 gut cast and at the fly, and see that they are in good 

 order. Everything being all right, we must render the line 

 and fly as buoyant as possible, and this we do by applying 

 some paraffin oil. You see this small bottle hanging 

 from the second button of my Norfolk jacket. Well, it 

 contains odourless paraffin, and by taking out the cork, in 

 which is held a camel-hair brush with the hair immersed 

 in the oil, we find we have enough oil on it to lightly 

 touch the wings and heckle the legs of the fly as well as 

 the cast and a yard or so of the line. Only a very little oil 

 is required on the fly, and the rest can be lightly applied to 

 the line. It is perhaps better to squeeze the fly in a 

 handkerchief between the finger and thumb being careful 

 not to injure the wings and thus to take away any super- 

 fluous oil. Now we are ready. 



You see, there are one or two more Blue Quill coming 

 down, but no signs of a trout, and as we have plenty of 

 water ahead, we will try and tempt the fish to rise to our 

 fly. Now this is where experience and stream lore is so 

 necessary. Trout, though fairly home birds, to use an 

 Irishism, alter their position constantly from one point of 



