DRY FLY FISHING 75 



variety of flies than I ever use, but successive 

 seasons tend to diminish the number rather than 

 to add to it, and in practice I should be content 

 (exclusive of the May-fly and sedge-fly, which are 

 for special waters or exceptional occasions) with 

 four sorts. In May these would be a medium- 

 coloured olive quill gnat, neither very light nor 

 very dark, and the iron blue. The first of these 

 is the one for general use, but the latter is 

 essential also. 1 As a rule, if the rising trout in 

 May will not have the olive quill, the angler 

 will not have very much success with anything 

 else, and he will find that the trout are either 

 bulging or in some state of preternatural sus- 

 picion. But there are times when the iron blue 

 comes on the water and is taken, to the exclusion 

 of the other flies. On such occasions the angler 

 will easily notice the presence of iron blues, and 

 change his fly. Sometimes it happens that the 

 trout begin rising at olives, and the iron blue 

 comes up later on. I have notes of days when 

 this has happened, and when the olive was quite 

 satisfactory for the first hour or so of the rise, 



1 The author it here evidently speaking of Hampshire rivers only. 

 One rarely sees a considerable hatch of the iron blue in the Hertford- 

 shire trout streams, and not very often on the Derbyshire Wye. EDS. 



