174 HOW TO HUMOUR TUP/.!. 



.onwards, when the keeper came towards me again. I saw 

 him glance at the place where the fish usually rose: 

 * Ah,' I said, c it's of no use for you to look there for him, 

 keeper ; you'll never see him make circles tlwre any more* 

 I told you I'd catch him, and here he is.' The keeper 

 looked at the fish, and his bump of veneration, I could 

 see, was greatly enlarged. Evidently he thought me a 

 dangerous customer, and well he might, for I made his 

 finny charges stand and deliver to a very considerable 

 mount before I left them. I never told him how I 

 had circumvented his pet, but I found out that my 

 suspicions as to how it had always been fished for were 

 correct. 



Yes ; there is nothing pays better with good fish than a 

 little careful preliminary study of their territory. Never 

 fish them rashly or without due consideration, or you do 

 more harm than good. If a good fish rises at the fly and 

 refuses it, you should not cast again immediately ; give 

 him a few minutes' rest to recover himself, and take ad- 

 vantage of any cloud or puff of wind that may occur when 

 you throw again. If he again comes short, give him 

 another rest, and try a dry fly over him ; if that fails, let 

 the fly sink well six or eight inches, or even more, under 

 water, and if that does not succeed, either change the fly 

 or leave him the latter for choice. When you are fishing 

 regularly, however, with the dry fly, you may keep on at a 

 fish as long as he rises. 



If fish are rising short, rolling over the fly, or flapping 

 at it with their tails to drown it, oblige them at once by 

 letting it sink, and your attention to their wishes will often 

 be rewarded. To show the advantage at times of sinking 

 the fly, I will relate another circumstance that occurred to 

 me some years ago. 



Fishing in Hampshire some time since, on the Earl of 

 Portsmouth's water, I had had very indifferent sport all 



