' WHAT FLY IS UP ? " 37 



the more sedulously he consults them the more likely he is to 

 please them, and this is all that we Southerns do. This is a 

 position which I do not think it is possible to upset. Nor do I 

 see what can be said beyond it. If it be urged that colorofegy 

 is easier, demands less study, consideration, or variety, that 

 appears to me to be a lazy argument, applicable to every 

 science, and cuts away one of the most interesting branches 

 of the fisher's amusement. The trout in the north are more 

 plentiful than they are in our streams in the south. The 

 season for feeding is much shorter. The rivers for the most 

 part do not so abound in food as ours, often flowing as they 

 do over hard gravel and rocky beds and through barren moor- 

 land districts, and the fish have harder work to pick up a living, 

 and are therefore possibly less inclined to be closely critical 

 when they are feeding, and if the fly be somewhat near the 

 colour and size they cannot afford to reject it. A Scotchman 

 measures his takes by dozens, we by braces ; and it is more 

 difficult to take the brace upon one of our well-thrashed 

 streams, than it is the dozen on the other side of the border, 

 and consequently we are obliged to be more careful in our 

 deceptions, and to watch nature more closely. 



Our system is, however, little by little creeping north. On 

 Tweed a considerable advance has been made of late years 

 towards the studying of the fly that is " up," and the imitation 

 thereof ; and one hears now amongst the best anglers there, 

 of blue and yellow duns, March browns, willow flies, and 

 several other names for flies, many of which are perhaps local, 

 but which nevertheless indicate the flies actually on the water. 

 " What fly is up ? " is becoming nearly as common a question 

 as it is " down south ; " and if angling progresses steadily 

 in the way it is doing, many a stream where no study is now 

 paid to what may be on the water will, in a few years, if fish 

 are to be killed, call for a much closer attention to this peculi- 

 arity than is at present exercised. One thing I can certainly 

 say, viz. that by following the system I advocate, of study- 

 ing nature as closely as possible, I have never come upon a 

 stream in the kingdom (and I have fished much the greater 

 part of it, where the colorological practice prevails), on which, 

 after a sufficient acquaintance to make me tolerably familiar 

 with the water, I could not, with my southern book of imita- 

 tions, kill trout quite as well and often better than many of 

 the habitues of the water could with their piscatory heirlooms 

 and relics. This, however, does not apply to all lakes. On 



