OCTOBER 159 



these fish will feed on almost anything, as they are 

 ravenous : as Walton says, " very pleasant and jolly." 

 Indeed, in Mayfly time I have frequently taken, on one 

 stretch of the Kennet below Newbury, five or six gray- 

 ling for every trout hooked on the Mayfly, dry and 

 floating. 



On the other hand, the grayling takes a wet fly well 

 on all streams, and is, if anything, more apt to bulge at 

 larvae even than a trout. 



As I have no scruples as to the method employed for 

 fair fly-fishing for either trout or grayling, I am therefore 

 inclined to advocate the use of one wet fly for grayling if 

 they are not rising at the perfect insect. It may be 

 said en passant that the chief objections in the writer's 

 mind to the use of wet fly for trout in chalk streams are 

 (1) because it does not catch as many fish, and (2) 

 because, as trout lie near the surface, it shows too much 

 to the fish of the modus opemndi, and renders it shy for 

 the next angler. 



These objections do not, however, apply to grayling, 

 for three reasons : 



1. Grayling lie at a greater depth than trout, and 

 much more frequently out in the centre of the river, and 

 hence are not so easily scared. 



2. Grayling take a dragging fly when trout will not 

 look at it. 



3. Grayling feed best during the winter months when 

 there is but little surface food about. 



For wet fly fishing various favourite patterns are 

 recommended, but the writer has never found any fly 

 equal for all-round work to Rolt's Witch on Nos. 1 to 

 00 hooks. Having said something about the fish and 

 its food and the best fly to use, let us now consider the 

 actual fishing itself I will here make no reference to 

 bait-fishing for grayling, such as is so extensively 

 practised in the North of England. On the Kennet 

 grayling are prized as game fish, and give sport to the 

 fly-fisher when the trout do not. Under these circum- 

 stances, bait fishing is much akin to poaching, save and 

 except when it is intended to clear certain stretches of 



