OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 35 



time the former arrive, provided that no accident 

 supervenes. As trout feed on flies in all their stages 

 in all streams, therefore lures representing immature 

 forms and lures resembling perfect insects can be 

 used with great hope of success everywhere that 

 flies and trout are found. Any river is a dry-fly 

 water when the trout are rising to take flies from the 

 surface, and the same river is a wet-fly water when 

 the trout are feeding on nymphs. 



In brawling Highland streams, where for long 

 stretches the water is foaming white, tortured by 

 rocks into innumerable cascades, we have used the 

 floating fly, and with it have taken many dozens of 

 trout from the tiny pockets. To fish completely 

 fifty yards of such a reach takes up fully an hour 

 zigzagging backwards and forwards across the 

 stream, searching every little corner of smooth 

 surface, for every step has to be carefully chosen. 

 Of course the dry-fly is entirely unnecessary in such 

 water. The wet-fly proved quite as effective a 

 lure, or at any rate it answered perfectly well ; but 

 we used the dry-fly at times merely to prove to 

 our own satisfaction that it is not confined to any 

 particular type of water. 



The Balvaig is in certain parts so slow that it is 

 well-nigh impossible to detect any current in it, and 

 we have had good sport on it with both wet and dry 

 flies. On the Clyde immediately below Elvanfoot 

 there is a long diversified stretch which the angler 

 would at once declare to be absolutely ideal water 

 for the use of the worm and creeper, and so it is ; 

 but it likewise has afforded us some of the best 

 and most interesting dry-fly fishing that we have 

 experienced. 



