8 Dry-Fly Fishing. 



and make a very fair cast, the wind again helping 

 you so that your fly falls only a little short, is at once 

 caught by the circling eddy, earned up-stream as it 

 were until the down current catches and turns it. 

 At that moment the expectant trout quickly moves 

 towards it and innocently sucks it in ; you strike, 

 and you know instantly and thrill with the know- 

 ledge that the quarry is well hooked. His home, no 

 doubt, is in the eddy, and he therefore bores down 

 io its deepest part what time you hold him well 

 under control to prevent his entanglement in a mass 

 of horse-tail weeds which you can see he is making 

 for. Tailing in that he surrenders himself to the 

 swirl of the eddy, and, while an example of passive* 

 resistance he goes the round of it, you have an 

 opportunity of reeling in your slack line, now very 

 dangerously lying at your feet, and then holding 

 him from the winch. The eleven-foot rod behaves 

 splendidly, gracefully bowing and bending by the 

 pressure put on the fish with the view to tire 

 him by degrees. Again and again he makes frantic 

 efforts to gain those weeds. It is evidently an old " 

 stratagem, but at last he makes a bolder stroke for 

 liberty by rushing up the stream, twice springing 

 into the air and running out fifteen yards of line : 

 a brief pause ensues, and again you reel up and have 

 him under the management of the rod ; he then 

 turns and dashes down, hugging the east bank, as 



