86 TROUTING FLIES. 



in this or any other respect. The shape, colour, and 

 proportions of the lure ought respectively to be con- 

 sidered. Sometimes, it is true, in the season referred 

 to, trout, and those of ordinary dimensions, are taken 

 on the huge gaudy flies used for kelts and spring 

 salmon; but to angle with such, exclusively for the 

 purpose and in a purely trouting stream, were absolute 

 folly. On the occasions in question, the fish evidently 

 seize the lure, as they do a minnow or parr-tail, not as 

 an insect or anything resembling one. 



While recommending the use of good sized fly-hooks 

 during March and the early portion of April, I allow 

 that there are several of our Scottish streams where the 

 trout, from natural shyness and other causes, repudiate 

 or disregard them ; yet when effective, as on most lochs 

 and rivers they unquestionably are, one great advantage 

 they have over the lesser sizes of wire lies in their 

 superior capacity to retain fish when hooked a matter 

 which some anglers affect to make light of, but one, in 

 reality, of very considerable consequence when the con- 

 tents of the creel have, at the close of the day's sport, 

 to pass muster. 



Advancing from the middle of April into the months 

 of May and June, considerable changes, regulated 

 chiefly by weather and state of water, will be found 

 to take place with respect to the size of their surface 

 food, in the tastes and inclinations of our river trout, 

 especially in the southern districts of Scotland. The 

 fish, during this period of the year, having left the still, 

 deep places, betake themselves towards the streams and 

 rapids, not yet, however, be it observed, into the true 

 shallows and thinnest portions of the water, which they 

 do about the middle of summer, when minnows, small- 

 fry, and ground-bait of various sorts become abundant. 



