310 DRY-FLY FISHING 



stretch. Here it took fifty pounds of trout in one 

 week, but then the water was in perfect order, the 

 wind right, and the fish feeding all day long. 



Once here we were ordered out to obtain a dish 

 for some friends ; for the first four hours we covered 

 two miles of water without receiving as much as a 

 rise, but in the next hour, probably the most crowded 

 hour we ever enjoyed, we took nineteen trout of the 

 very best quality. It is difficult to be entirely 

 hopeless when such memories come, but to-day, 

 we are sure, will not witness great events. 



Though the river sings a merry tune as it dances 

 over the pebbly shallows, the water betrays no sign 

 of life. Not a spreading ring marks the breezy 

 surface of the pools or the broad calm belts along 

 the bank ; not a fly flutters through the sunny air 

 or sails the sparkling stream ; the thought comes 

 strong upon us, and it persists all day long, that 

 very few trout remain where once a magnificent 

 stock was maintained. The great problem presented 

 for solution concerns the flies which should be 

 placed upon the cast. Possibly one pattern will be 

 as good as another, and until some indication arrives 

 from the water we decide to entrust our fortunes 

 to a Black Spider as being sufficiently suggestive of 

 the late Iron Blues, a very probable arrival, and a 

 Rough Olive, a generally useful pattern and one 

 not unlike the Autumn Reds and Browns. 



The wind is as bad as it can possibly be, but at 

 Bodsbury Flat the river makes a great swinging 

 bend, so that the water actually heads to the South. 

 That part will offer easy casting, and its immediate 

 surroundings will be comparatively simple to 

 negotiate. Thither we go, reminding ourselves that 



