FLOATING FLIES 83 



plentiful ; but there we never happened to see the 

 trout taking them ; on the other hand we found the 

 trout of the River Cairn, a tributary of the Nith, 

 very keen on them in the month of August, the rise 

 being most pronounced and general. As we had 

 nothing better at the moment, we offered them a 

 Black Spider, and it was well received. There 

 seems to be no limit to the usefulness of that pattern, 

 but a superior imitation is easily made. 



The light Corncrake and the Cinnamon Sedge are 

 both very good. The former has brought us a few 

 fish on sunny afternoons under the most difficult 

 conditions, while the latter is a splendid fly for a 

 late evening of summer. We have fished the 

 Cinnamon on the Clyde in the gloaming and under 

 moonlight (a delightful experience !), and with it 

 have taken some grand fish, not many, only a brace 

 or at most two at an expedition, but almost invari- 

 ably superb specimens ; also with it we hooked 

 what would probably have proved our record trout 

 had misfortune in the form of sunken wire not 

 intervened. 



The Grannom is an indispensable pattern on 

 many rivers, and like all sedge-flies should be dressed 

 with low-lying wings ; it is not a member of the 

 Ephemeridce as the majority of fly-dressers seem to 

 imagine. Due in May about the same time as the 

 Gravel-bed, it sometimes occurs in such prodigious 

 numbers that the angler finds it hopeless to enter 

 into competition against so many. Though year 

 after year we have been on the river at a time when 

 this phenomenon might have been displayed, we 

 have never been privileged to witness it. Such 

 accidents will happen to anyone who is not so 



