212 DRY-FLY FISHING 



to praise it, the month of kindliest weather and 

 superb, but wary, trout ? Shall anyone remain 

 away from the waters for one single hour that is 

 his own ? 



Without limit are the joys of the loch and stream 

 in June ; in peerless condition are the lusty trout ; 

 everywhere is loveliness. Where should the angler 

 spend his days and evenings with the rod ? 



He may devote them entirely to the faster streams, 

 where the stone-fly abounds, and come home tired 

 and happy under the joyful burden of the heavy 

 creel ; but, though it still will lure fine trout to their 

 doom, that bait has lost its attractions for us. 

 Why that should be so we cannot explain satis- 

 factorily even to ourselves, and good it is that 

 reasons are not always necessary. We prefer to 

 use a delicate copy of the fragile dun, the fluttering 

 sedge, or the suggestion of a tiny midge, and seek 

 thus to tempt the discriminating trout, that roam 

 the pools and throng the gravelly streams in June. 



The burning sun drives us to the shade of the 

 quivering trees, where, too, the busy spinners have 

 retired ; there we lie in wait on the dappled turf 

 or thick carpet of pine-needles, eyes gazing on 

 the pool, longing for the advent of the first glad rise 

 that makes us spring to attention. Eagerly we 

 scan the water in an effort to determine the species 

 of fly that brings the waiting to an end. It may 

 have been but an adventurous froghopper that has 

 hopped too far from his grassy spire ; if so, our rest 

 is only briefly interrupted. It may have been 

 only a wandering spinner dashed down by that 

 wheeling martin, but it was not, for there the rise 

 is again repeated ; the heavy sucking swirl stops 



