A DAY'S DRY FLY FISHING 23 



The strike should be made as the trout rises at the fly, 

 for the fish, after taking the fly, will as a rule turn down 

 stream, then round, and up stream again to his original 

 position, and the strike if delayed may pull the fly out of 

 the mouth of the fish as it faces down stream and towards 

 the fisherman.* 



The big trout will reject a fly just as quickly as the 

 small one, but the little trout is more likely to play with, 

 to come short, or to wish to " drown " a fly than the former, 

 and therefore at each rise there should as a rule be no delay 

 in striking but if the immediate strike proves abortive, 

 then and not till then can a more delayed manner of 

 striking be experimented with. When fishing with the 

 natural stone fly, that is to say, the Northern May fly, 

 when dapping with the natural May fly on the southern 

 and Irish streams, unless the fish are rising furiously, it is 

 better to pause for the fraction of a second in order that the 

 fly, which may have been only partly seized, may be taken 

 completely into the mouth of the trout. A natural fly, 

 if properly attached to the hook, is less likely to be rejected 

 than is the artificial, and the pause I now suggest is not 

 likely to result in the rejection of a natural fly if it be only 

 partially taken into the mouth of the fish, but will lead to 

 a more complete seizure. 



A pause before striking, however, is here worth trying, 

 so that at the next rise we had better not strike until 

 one second has elapsed. Now I dry my fly once more and 

 cast again. There ! he is rising now I strike with no 

 greater success than before. I will try him just once 

 again no luck ! 



* Francis Francis says : " As to giving any direct rules when to strike, 

 they would be of little avail, as sometimes fish rise quickly, and take quickly, 

 sometimes with more circumspection, and sometimes altogether falsely. 

 Practice alone will teach the angler what to do, and how and when to do it, 

 and all arguments about it are mere waste of time." A Book on Angling, 

 1885. 



