SEDGE AND MAYFLY. 153 



the best use of it. After a good many seasons 

 spent entirely with this end in view I have come to 

 the conclusion that fish of from three pounds 

 upwards do not necessarily take Mayflies every day. 

 The very big ones, I am sure, rise very seldom. 

 And when they do rise it is as a rule only for a 

 short time. The best plan of campaign is, I think, 

 to find out whereabouts a big fish lies, to wait there 

 till he begins to feed, and then to lose no time in 

 covering him. If possible the fly should be about 

 the fourth that floats down over his head after he 

 has once begun to feed. Then one is almost 

 certain to get a rise out of him. Whether one will 

 hook him, or, having hooked, will land him, is 

 another matter in which nerve and luck play an 

 equally prominent part. 



.two Mayflies) which is then allowed to float out in the breeze 

 and ultimately to settle on the water until a trout sees and 

 /takes it. Some men prefer to have three or four inches of 

 gut in the water, others to have nothing in the water but the 

 fly; practically all are agreed that a rising fish should be 

 given an appreciable amount of time before one tightens on 

 4iim. There is a chance of getting very big trout by dapping. 

 The method need not necessarily be confined to Ireland. I 

 .have had very good fun dapping for coarse fish in England 

 with bluebottles and other lures. The daddy-longlegs is a 

 good bait for all fish and in Ireland it affords a second 

 dapping season little inferior to the first. 



