144 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 



in fact, little similarity between these two pat- 

 terns except in the name itself, this seemed 

 sufficient to my ignorant mind, and I took them. 

 The following day, upon the stream, my cast of 

 three flies (I was a wet fly angler then) was 

 never without a King-of-the- Waters and not a 

 fish did I take with it. I attributed my non- 

 success to the pattern of fly, and it never oc- 

 curred to me at the time that very few fish were 

 taken at all that day, although many anglers 

 were on the stream. The next morning, when I 

 opened my fly book, I found that a great deal 

 of the red dye used upon the silk body of the 

 fly had come off on the drying pad. The body 

 of the fly was now a beautiful pink. Out of 

 curiosity I wet the fly, and the pink body 

 turned a brilliant red. I thought the thing 

 over, and decided that I had stumbled upon an 

 explanation of the failure of the fly to take the 

 day before. The body of the fly originally was 

 red and was evidently meant to appear so to 

 the trout. When wet, however, it had turned a 

 muddy brown. With most of the colour washed 

 out, the fly turned a darker shade when wet, 

 became really red, and stayed red. I deter- 

 mined that if this was the colour the trout 

 wanted, they should have it, and I soaked a half 



