DRY FLY FISHING 87 



leisure in every detail, have convinced me that 

 trout do attempt to resist the strain of the tackle 

 in the way described. 1 



Weeds are the great and universal difficulty 

 with chalk stream trout, and there are times 

 when large fish break the gut by carrying the 

 line right through patches of them, and so 

 arranging matters that they and not the angler 

 settle how much strain the gut has to bear, but 

 on the whole, considering how many and how 

 thick the weeds are, less fish arc lost than 

 might be supposed. Trout differ very much in 

 the use they attempt to make of weeds, and 

 every now and then a good fish will appear to 

 neglect the weeds altogether, as if it were too 

 chivalrous to take so great an advantage of the 

 angler. When a fish is bent on doing some 

 quite fatal thing, such as going down a hatch, 

 the angler must decide, according to his idea of 

 the strength of his tackle and of the size of 

 the fish, whether he had not better at all costs 



1 It would surely be hard to over-estimate the importance to the 

 angler, and the interest to the naturalist, of this theory of Sir Edward 

 Grey's. The resistance often offered by trout of a moderate size when 

 they have reached a small patch of weeds in a chalk stream is quite 

 mysterious. Eos. 



