CHAPTER XIV 



FISHING THE STREAM 



WHEN the angler goes out to the river to 

 enjoy an hour or two of dry-fly fishing, 

 he may confine his attentions entirely 

 to trout that he observes rising to take natural 

 flies from the surface; or he may, in addition to 

 attempting the downfall of all rising fish within 

 reach, cast his fly wherever his experience tells 

 him that a fish is likely to be lying in wait. In the 

 first case he is said to " fish the rise/' and in the 

 second he "fishes the stream/' 



For the first method of securing trout there is 

 claimed a superior charm, a claim that we cannot 

 grant, seeing that it is not easy for us to believe 

 that the part is greater than the whole. The angler 

 who fishes the stream lays his flies as delicately on 

 the water and takes as much advantage of a natural 

 rise as he who fishes the rise ; but the former knows, 

 or is rapidly learning, something that is difficult to 

 learn, something that the latter does not know or 

 scorns to apply his knowledge of, viz, the art of 

 reading the unseen bed of the river, its inequalities, 

 the little pockets between rocks, the deep channels 

 between sunken clumps of weed. 



Many people can tell the meaning of a rise, and 

 some can tell whether a rise is caused by a trout 



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