JIO HOW TO DRESS THE IRON-HUT. 



bloodthirsty-looking little fellows. On they come, wl i i rl i 1 1 ^ 

 about on the eddying current, now head up-stream and 

 now down. Plop, plop, plop ; the trout are rising in all 

 directions ; the fun grows fast and furious. Well betide 

 the angler then if he has a stock of them accurately and 

 neatly tied upon the finest weed-coloured gut, for in the 

 next half hour many a fin shall flap and tail shall wag 

 beneath his bending rod which never shall wag more. 

 Useless then your blue and yellow duns ; useless all your 

 March browns and spinners the trout will not look at 

 them. Essay a cast of them over yonder fine fellow that 

 has risen ft score of times under the bank there, while you 

 have been changing flies in vain (not having our little 

 dark friend in your store). There, you cover him with 

 the bob-fly, and up he comes. You need not strike, for 

 no answering twitch follows the sudden rise. He merely 

 took an iron-blue within an inch of your bob. And there, 

 as I live, ere the stretcher is well over him, he has taken 

 another ! How they are rising to be sure ! and how 

 desperately provoking it is that not one of them all will 

 look at you. Suddenly, as if by magic, all is still. Every 

 trout has left off rising. Who would believe, to look at 

 the bosom of that placid stream now undimpled by a rise 

 or a ripple, that but a bare half minute since it was all in 

 a break and turmoil with the splash and rising of ravenous 

 Boosters ? To look at the stream now no one would think 

 there is a trout in it. You know better, though : and now, 

 if you have the skill and the patience, sit down in some 

 sheltered nook, pull out your fly-book, choose your finest 

 hooks and gut (hook, No. 1 1 or 1 2), and set to work. 

 Have you an old fly with a mole's fur body, or any silk 

 for that colour, or even a shade lighter, as the fly varies 

 from light lead colour to mole's fur ? Good ! on with it ; 

 not too fast nor to thick, however. The shank of your 

 hook will be almost sufficient for the tail-end of the body, 



