CHAPTER XIII 



DAPPING 



SOMETIMES the trout-stalker, in the course 

 of his leisurely and happy progress up the 

 stream, will arrive at some part where, by 

 reason of dense bushes, low-hanging trees, or wild 

 confusion of rock and boulder, casting in the ordin- 

 ary sense is impracticable. He need not pass 

 such places by, as so many of his predecessors have 

 done : there are trout there that remain compara- 

 tively ignorant of the wiles of man, have profited 

 by his timidity, and being unmolested have waxed 

 fat and careless. They can be caught by any 

 angler who will not shirk difficulties, and who will 

 practise the art of dapping an artificial fly ; that 

 is in ordinary words, laying it lightly on the water 

 without any assistance other than that conferred 

 by a friendly breeze. 



Dapping with the natural fly has long been prac- 

 tised. The stone-fly fisher impales the living insect, 

 a female preferably, on a series of two or three 

 hooks arranged with cunning purpose to protect 

 the principal points of attack, and using a line only 

 a little, if at all, longer than his rod, he searches 

 thoroughly the type of water in which these flies 

 spend the major portion of their existence, viz. 

 rough stony stretches and necks of pools. Most 



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