A DAY'S FISHING. 135 



whether it has been worth it. Sometimes one can 

 kill a trout which is well on the feed by persevering 

 with the first pattern, especially if it be a Wickham. 

 But on well-stocked and little-fished waters this 

 policy is, perhaps, a mistake. It undoubtedly tends 

 to make a fish suspicious if it does not catch him, 

 and ultimately he will then be " put down," and so 

 to some extent educated. On hard-fished waters, 

 on the other hand, where trout are so accustomed 

 to artificial flies that it is almost impossible to put 

 them down and where their education may be 

 regarded as complete, the practice of persevering 

 with the same fly is not a bad one. Sooner or later 

 the feeding fish may make a mistake, and then the 

 angler is the better for it. If no mistake is made, 

 the fish is, at any rate, none the worse. 



It may happen that after the young angler has 

 been happily casting away at rising fish all the 

 morning, putting most of them down probably, but 

 haply hooking one here and there, he will take an 

 interval for luncheon. Afterwards he will return 

 to the stream, to find that the morning rise is over; 

 there are no more duns floating down, and appar-. 

 ently there are no more fish feeding. But, stay ; 

 surely there was a movement of the water close 

 under his own bank about thirty yards up stream. 

 The novice sets off to investigate, and creeps up to 



