106 FISHERMEN'S WEATHER 



left no choice but an abandonment of the 

 game. Under the lee of a moist haystack, 

 I got out of harness and counted out 5^ 

 brace of grayling and trout. It may be 

 objected that by fishing downstream with 

 wet flies I should probably have caught 

 three times the quantity ; but this was 

 not so, for on the same day, higher up- 

 stream, two very good fishermen tried that 

 orthodox method with very indifferent 

 result, leaving me to insist on the reversal 

 of the accepted rules as regards both 

 weather and the floating fly, and to 

 draw the moral of perseverance in the 

 face of conditions to all appearance 

 hopeless." 



This disagreeable experience is of in- 

 terest from more standpoints than one, 

 for, as the Editor of the Field points out 

 in the last sentence, it bears not only 

 upon the impossibility of laying down the 

 law in matters of fishing weather, but it 

 likewise strikes at a sacred canon of the 

 dry-fly fisherman, touching the hopeless- 

 ness of that method for grayling in 



