SOME FANCIES SOME FACTS 187 



than he is; yet it was just such a day, as cold 

 and blustering as I have ever experienced, that 

 the trout on the Brodhead, of which I have told, 

 rose to the fly which was made to play such 

 pranks by the wind. 



There is a gentleman of my acquaintance, an 

 expert with the fly, who holds that it is useless 

 to fish a wooded stream when the wind is blow- 

 ing heavily, not so much because of any change 

 in atmospheric conditions, but because the rap- 

 idly moving shadows thrown upon the water 

 by the frantically waving overhead limbs and 

 branches seem to make the trout restless or 

 nervous, and unwilling to feed. Be this as it 

 may, it certainly does not apply upon the open 

 stretches, for there the wind is of distinct ad- 

 vantage, because the ruffled surface helps to 

 conceal the angler's activities from the fish. 

 When success does not attend the caster's 

 efforts on days of this sort, failure must be 

 ascribed to his state of mind rather than to the 

 condition of the weather. 



And here just a hint from my own experi- 

 ence: beware of fishing in big woods on a very 

 windy day; dead limbs may come crashing down 

 at any moment. On one occasion a difference of 

 ten feet in my position would have meant dis- 



