When best Sport may be had. 127 



Should April be mild and balmy, with occasional 

 showers, heavy baskets will be the rule ; but there 

 is no doubt that May is the best month. The 

 weather is then more settled, the trout feed more 

 readily, and the sport is therefore more certain. 

 September I should place next in order after April 

 and May ; indeed it is frequently not much inferior 

 to either. 



Up to the middle of June the angler may antici- 

 pate more or less sport with the artificial fly in 

 ordinary conditions of the water; but during the 

 next two months the most choice day for a great 

 "take" is the one immediately following a flood, 

 with the weather cool and the water still running 

 black. Few practical anglers will agree with Mr 

 Francis in his recommendation never to fish in a 

 flooded water. Every one knows that splendid 

 sport is to be had with the worm in such a water ; 

 and my heaviest "takes" with the artificial fly 

 have been in a black water on the day following 

 a "spate." Many years ago, when circumstances 

 were altogether more favourable to the angler than 

 now, when the river ran full and in capital fishing 

 order for a week after a flood, the good days were 

 not so few ; but now the effective system of hill- 

 drainage, which carries off to the sea all the rain 

 nearly as fast as it falls, carries off also in one 

 day the fortunes and the chances of many. And 



