THE NECESSITY FOR THE DRY-FLY 23 



winged lure borne down beneath the surface in 

 answer to a current or other force, then he must 

 make sure that his fly will not be unnatural in action. 



In some streams, thrashed every day by many 

 anglers, it is a well-known fact that sport is generally 

 poor during the summer months. It is commonly 

 stated that the reason for this is that the trout are 

 well-fed, and neither require nor desire food. With 

 that some disagree, maintaining that the fish have 

 had such abundance of insect-food that they are 

 completely sated with it, and wish a change of diet. 

 Acting on this assumption, they fish the worm in 

 clear water and prove conclusively that the trout 

 are very keen on food ; but it does not follow that 

 flies are temporarily out of favour. 



On a cold day in July or on a warm summer even- 

 ing, flies are plentiful, and trout will take them quite 

 as greedily as at any other time. The fact is that 

 flies never are unwelcome, but on certain days, 

 particularly in summer, they are very scarce, con- 

 ditions being not such as they prefer. It is very 

 seldom indeed that on a river a hatch is not accom- 

 panied by a rise ; but the trout have learned a lot 

 during the spring, re-learned all that they forgot 

 during the winter, and the result is that they are less 

 easy to deceive. 



The ordinary wet-fly is now practically worthless ; 

 but a dry-fly, if floated carefully over a feeding fish, 

 is almost certain to produce a rise. Those anglers 

 who object to natural baits of all kinds will find 

 that a floating fly will bring to an end much of the 

 disappointment they experience in the difficult days 

 of July and August. 



It would be perfectly fair to ask why it is that the 



