Notes and Sport of a Dry -Fly Purist. 145 



Thither I hastened, and when the fish came up 

 again and again my fly was sent on its mission half 

 a dozen times, but not taken. He was evidently a 

 travelling fish, at every rise a yard or two further 

 on, probably intercepting nymphse. What was to 

 be done ? Getting well in front of him, and lying 

 prone on the grassy bank, I tried the horizontal 

 back-handed drift cast, and at the third attempt to 

 place the fly straight before him he seized it, 

 making a boil. And by a gentle strike ' (not too 

 instantly made, lest the hook should be pulled out 

 of his mouth) he was hooked, and, after a game 

 fight, safely landed the best fish of the day, and 

 making up two brace in the morning rise. It was 

 past two o'clock, and as there is usually, after so 

 good and continuous a rise, not much more sport to 

 be expected until the evening, I put my rod aside 

 and resumed it about 6.30. 



As the sun sank behind the downs and I stood 

 facing Oliver's Battery on the east side of the mill 

 stream, which in the glorious afterglow gleamed 

 like molten gold, and distinctly showed up every 

 fly or movement on its surface, trout began to rise, 

 at first fitfully, but by 7.15 my rod had been kept 

 busy casting over fish in view or rising, but only 

 undersized ones came to hand. During the next 

 half hour, however, they came madly on the 

 feed, taking blue-winged olives and phryganidae 



