70 Artificial-Fly Fishing. 



begin to appear on the water in considerable num- 

 bers, to the evident satisfaction of the trout, that 

 speedily and joyfully hail them with more than 

 the familiarity of an "auld acquaintance," whom 

 even a whole winter's enforced abstinence had not 

 suffered them to forget. 



In exposed and high-lying districts the flies are 

 later in coming out, and it is not unusual for the 

 angling season on one part of the river to be a 

 fortnight later than on another. In April and 

 early May the good baskets which may be got 

 on Clyde below Lamington, or on Tweed below 

 Peebles, will be looked for in vain on the upper 

 reaches of those rivers, where circumstances are 

 not so favourable for the early development of 

 the flies. 



From the commencement of the fishing season 

 till the end of May, the angler may rely on obtain- 

 ing better sport with the artificial fly than at any 

 other time during the season. I admit the fact, 

 and have elsewhere endeavoured to account for it, 

 that even during this, " the height of the season," 

 the angler's " take " is poor compared with the bas- 

 kets of twenty or thirty years ago ; but even in 

 these altered and degenerate times, I should consider 

 any day's fishing a failure were I to kill less than 

 from ten to fifteen pounds of trout between ten in 

 the morning and four in the afternoon. 



