A DAY'S FISHING. 133 



that the fly must have enough law to float fora foot 

 or two independently of the line. 



In all cases where there is a danger of drag I 

 try to drop the fly not more than ift. above the 

 fish ; where there is no risk 2ft. or even 3ft. are 

 sometimes not too many. Now and then a fish 

 will be found rising in a place so awkward that it 

 is a question of inches rather than of feet; in some 

 little bay, for instance, where there is an eddy 

 flowing not merely more slowly than the stream, 

 but even in the opposite direction. Here 

 practically one's only chance is to drop the fly 

 immediately over his nose, and it is a poor one at 

 that, for the larger chalk-stream trout do not as a 

 rule like to be startled into taking- their food, and 

 prefer to inspect it leisureiy as it approaches them. 

 The exception which tests this rule is a fish feeding 

 close under the bank ; he will occasionally open 

 his mouth, as it were, to receive a falling fly, 

 especiilly if it shall have been cast on to the grass 

 or sedges and then twitched gently off. Also in a 

 piece of very quick shallow water a trout will 

 sometimes come up with a plunge at a fly as it 

 falls. Such a fish is very alarming, and one is apt 

 to respond too quickly to his rise, and so to leave 

 the fly in his mouth. As a method of getting over 

 the drag difficulty, therefore, casting immediately 



