34 DRY-FLY FISHING 



and at all times when trout are taking flies from the 

 surface or would be willing to take them if they 

 were there. 



The fact that the weather is breezy or calm, bright 

 or dull, wet or dry, in no way affects the deadliness 

 of the dry-fly. We prefer a good breeze to a calm 

 and, unless it is very strong, care not whether it is 

 up or down stream ; we imagine that then the trout 

 are in better humour. On the loch we are happy, 

 when the fish are rising well in a dead calm ; but the 

 advent of a ripple or a wave does not by any means 

 signify that the cast must be replaced by one bearing 

 the customary four wet-flies. If the flies hatch and 

 the trout rise, the dry-fly will continue to satisfy. 

 Nothing can be more dreary than the loch when it 

 is absolutely unruffled by wind and undimpled by 

 rising fish. Angling with any lure is then supreme 

 weariness ; but we would rather in such circumstances 

 fish the wet-fly than the dry, because it gives us 

 more work to do, and also because we find that a 

 deeply-sunk lure drawn jerkily towards the surface 

 has great attractions. 



Some rivers are declared to be dry-fly waters, 

 while others are designated wet-fly waters. That is 

 another example of the mass of amazing nonsense 

 connected with fishing, for it simply means that 

 those, who so speak, say that on some streams fully 

 matured flies are produced from nothing, a remark- 

 able example of spontaneous generation, and that 

 on others they are developed gradually through 

 several stages from the ovum, a process sometimes 

 occupying two and three years. Wherever there are 

 aquatic flies, there must have been larvae and 

 nymphs and, wherever the latter occur, there will in 



