172 'Dry-Fly Fishing. 



summer. At the riverside opposite Twyford, by 

 10 a.m. I saw with dismay that the surface was 

 strewn with sear and yellow floating leaves, amidst 

 which one's artificial fly was with difficulty placed 

 in the small clearer spaces between clinging- 

 together-clusters of such obstructions, and often 

 when lifting the fly a hooked leaf would be 

 brought back with it spinning through the air. 

 Trout for the next two hours rose freely, but 

 were successfully avoided because out of season, 

 and a number of sprat-size grayling caught and 

 returned. Then when the leaves ceased to flutter 

 down from the overhanging trees and nearly bare 

 withy bushes, and the clear and pellucid Itchen 

 flowed placidly along, gleaming in the cheery light, 

 many fish, still quiescent in their weedy haunts, 

 were exposed to view ; while (a yet more pleasant 

 sight to the patient angler) those more alert and 

 hungry were rising, ever and anon, to feast on an 

 attractive banquet of dark -winged olive duns and 

 spent jenny spinners dotting the surface. Grayling 

 darted up, dimly seen like a shadow, and snapped at 

 my lure, a Whitchurch dun dressed on a No. 1 

 hook, the very instant it touched the water, and 

 although striking ever so quickly the hook nearly 

 always failed to fasten. Probably the fish came 

 short, as is too often the custom with over-fastidious 

 Salmo tliymallm ; indeed, after that vicious snap or 



