FISHING THE STREAM 167 



have the place definitely fixed for him, he may 

 wait for ever. 



We have spent many hours watching and study- 

 ing the trout in a river, particularly trout whose 

 stations we knew. It is quite a common thing 

 to see a large fish rise once and not again for hours, 

 even though hosts of flies continue to pass over it ; 

 all anglers must have observed this. 



Why a trout should ignore so much food we do 

 not profess to know. Perhaps it conceived a sudden 

 notion to taste a fly and then, satisfied or disap- 

 pointed, desired no more, but the greater likelihood 

 is that these desirable trout do not readily feed 

 during the day, but prefer to wait until nightfall, 

 when they become less suspicious. 



In the course of a long holiday by the river we 

 discover one or two of these trout, and every day, 

 as we move up the water, we exercise the greatest 

 care with our cast over the fateful places. We have 

 dislodged the original tenant, and also a successor 

 or two from some of them, but we do not think 

 we can claim to be " fishing the rise " when the rise 

 was observed a week or more beforehand. A trout, 

 no matter how large it is, will accept a fly some 

 time, and therefore we offer one as often as we can ; 

 any day we may arrive at the right moment. 



In some narrow streams easily commanded from 

 bank to bank without wading, we often limit our- 

 selves to rising fish, as it is a comparatively easy 

 matter to locate exactly and get within reach of 

 a rise fifty yards or more away in a few seconds ; 

 but in broad rivers where we may be wading only 

 knee-deep and yet be many yard^ from the bank 

 it would take us a long time to reach the place. 



