110 FLY FISHING AND SPINNING 



highly successful, but far more interesting than fishing 

 down-stream. Wading is almost a sine qua non, as the 

 bank is too conspicuous a place for the angler ; and this is 

 the drawback of wet fly fishing up-stream, for the line must 

 as a rule be fished short, and a fisherman, having to use 

 a short line, must of necessity be closer to his fish than in 

 dry fly fishing. The greater the stream lore of the fisherman, 

 other things being equal, the greater will be his success. 

 Rising fish will naturally induce special attention. 



Wet fly fishing up-stream possesses many of the charms of 

 dry fly fishing, and as a sport it comes next to it in scientific 

 interest and pleasure. The object of jigging the wet fly 

 when in the water is to imitate the action of the nymph 

 or pupae when swimming; the object of letting it float 

 steadily down with the current being to imitate the drowned 

 sub-imago. Hence, when drowned sub-imago are not 

 present, and the pupae are being taken by the trout (any 

 captured trout will readily solve this point), a series of little 

 movements should be given to the drifting flies by tiny jerks 

 of the point of your rod. After a thunderstorm, when 

 numbers of drowned sub-imago are coming down, the pupae 

 are not as a rule moving, and it is better to allow the fly to 

 drift down with the current. 



STRIKING 



In wet fly fishing up-stream the fly at which the fish rises is 

 near the surface. The motion of the fish, or perhaps the 

 fish itself, can be seen, and the strike may therefore be made 

 either at the time the rise is seen or the touch is felt. When, 

 however, the fly is well below the surface, as in wet fly fishing 

 down-stream, the first intimation the fisherman gets that 

 a trout has taken one of his flies is the pluck or pull at his 

 fly. In most cases this pluck in itself is quite sufficient to 

 hook the fish, and therefore, in so many as eight cases out of 



