16 FLY FISHING AND SPINNING 



to keep a sharp look-out for rising fish trout will be taken 

 whose rise has not been seen, or who may not have felt 

 inclined to rise before seeing the angler's fly. 



In both wet and dry fly fishing, you offer to the fish food 

 which you consider is most likely to excite its desire, and you 

 try to present this food in a manner most nearly approach- 

 ing the natural conditions in which it is generally observed 

 by the trout. If the catching of fish be the principal object 

 of fishing, then the greatest importance must be attached to 

 that method of angling which presents food, or imitations of 

 food to the fish, in a form and in a manner most nearly 

 approaching the occurrence and the appearance of the food 

 of their every-day life. 



During the course of the year, the food upon which the 

 trout most commonly feed consists of worms, water shrimps, 

 larval and pupal forms of insect life, and the drowned or 

 partially submerged forms of flying or other insects, and as 

 these only exist to the trout below the surface of the water, 

 the most killing lures should be those which are submerged 

 and which represent the above-mentioned foods. 



But the occupation of trout fishing cannot now be regarded 

 as a means of livelihood, but merely as a sporting pastime, 

 which offers, at its best, a relaxation to our worries and our 

 cares, or at least presents a very pleasant and charming 

 variation to the pleasures of life, and it is for this reason 

 that the style or the method of fly fishing which gives the 

 greatest pleasure and which affords the keenest enjoyment 

 with the least sacrifice of fish life, will be that which will 

 eventually become the recognised method of fly fishing with 

 sportsmen. 



As the wet fly method of fishing superseded bottom fishing 

 as a sport, so is dry fly fishing rapidly superseding much of 

 the time hitherto spent on wet fly fishing, and however much 

 may be said in favour of the latter, however killing it may 



