48 FLY FISHING AND SPINNING 



Vancouver Island, etc., and my experience tells me that 

 in all trout streams wherever water insects assume a flying 

 condition the dry fly can, at certain times and in certain 

 places, be used with the greatest success. I don't believe 

 that any trout stream can be regarded solely as a wet fly 

 stream. 



As an instance of this, I remember that, during a summer 

 now long past, several well-known wet fly fishermen, stopping 

 at an hotel in Wales, had for some weeks given up all 

 attempts to catch trout, and, happening to arrive at the 

 time, 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. 



On the lovely little Sid, in Devonshire, just as on the 

 waters of the Deveron, 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 be as effective in June, July, and August 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 

 fishermen 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. 



But if sport is wanted, and opportunities of fishing are 

 few, it would be a mistake for the dry fly man to reel up his 

 line when a temporary thickness of the water shuts out his 

 fly from the ken of the fish, and so prevents his fishing with 

 a dry fly. If the rain has been a warm one the trout are 

 sure to be feeding toward the bottom of the stream, and 

 probably on drifting matter, such as the drowned sub-imago, 

 etc. It is much wiser, therefore, for the angler to put on a 

 wet fly cast, and, sinking his flies well below the surface, 



