104 Dry -Fly Fishing. 



dreary month of the year, to hook and play to a 

 finish in the landing-net four and a half brace of 

 beauties glittering like silver. Besides these, six 

 trout were landed and returned not a bad total for 

 two and a half hours' fishing. 



Next day, after the white dank mist and ghostly 

 hoar frost had cleared away from the housetops and 

 meadows, an early luncheon disposed of, and the 

 short journey, as before, made (my mind full of the 

 pleasant hours of yesterday), I again strode through 

 the same surroundings, sometimes ankle deep in 

 rustling fallen leaves, and as I quietly drew near to 

 the back stream a heron flew up from the sedge, in 

 its heavy flight startling four woodpigeons from a 

 circular group of seven noble trees, amongst whose 

 bare branches many large bunches of mistletoe 

 depended. The bright and now warm sunshine, the 

 placid river with flies floating thereon, and fish 

 taking them, inspired hope of sport, nay, the 

 certainty of it, as I knelt and made my initial cast 

 over a grayling in mid-channel, who promptly seized 

 my fly, a gold-ribbed hare's ear dressed on a No. 00 

 hook. No fish ever gave me more excitement in 

 playing and landing it a goodly specimen of Sahno 

 tfiymattus at his best, and over lib. in weight. 

 Within half an hour two more were tempted by the 

 very same fly (llin. fish) and brought to bank. I 

 say tempted by this fly, but, really, all through the 



