THE DRY-FLY SEASON 219 



and fish up towards the sun, easily forgetting the 

 terrors of early-rising in the enjoyment of the scene 

 and the sport. 



The trout are rising in the pool, dimpling the 

 water daintily, taking down indiscriminately any 

 species of fly floating over them. Our lure is an 

 upright Greenwell, and whether it resembles any 

 insect on the water we really have not time to dis- 

 cover. We wade along a high bank, stepping 

 carefully among the grass-topped masses torn off 

 by winter floods, sometimes on little gravel patches 

 between and sometimes on the yielding grass. 

 Instead of casting in the usual manner, for that 

 happens to be nearly impossible, we use the shortest 

 of lines and dap the fly over each rise within reach 

 as we progress. It is an exciting and a deadly 

 sport, striking being almost impossible of failure, 

 and the trout taken are mainly large and in the 

 prime of form. 



Quite as interesting it is when no fish are seen 

 rising. They are, we know, eager for food, but 

 the supplies have been delayed. Our fly is therefore 

 heartily taken. It certainly is a fine sequence of 

 happy things, to spot a rise, lay the fly, an exact 

 counterfeit of the living insect that has just been 

 swallowed up, lightly and accurately to the mark, 

 watch it with strained eye as it slowly follows the 

 floating bells, see it vanish beneath, and hear the 

 song of the reel as the fish strives to break the 

 restraining bonds. That undoubtedly yields plea- 

 sant sensations and intense satisfaction, because 

 care and skill and knowledge are all demanded, but 

 we hold that there is something still better. 



Across the pool, irregularly waving, broken by 



