L".'l THE BUMBLE-FLY. 



the angler will be well rewarded for his keennesss. A 

 little bit of tinsel is often useful in grayling flies, which 

 in all other respects do not differ from those used for trout. 

 Grayling are very partial to the little blue and yellow duns 

 and spinners, and these always prove the great ptice de 

 resistance in the choice of flies for grayling. They have 

 a very noted grayling fly in Derbyshire called the Bumble, 

 which kills well elsewhere. It varies in the dressing ; one 

 should be dressed with orange and the others with ruby 

 floss silk body, ribbed with peacock herl ; with a light 

 blue dun hackle over for the first, and a darker one for 

 the other. These flies are always worth a trial over gray- 

 ling, if the angler is at a loss. I have seen a sandy red 

 hackle with a scrap of crimson floss for a tail kill well, and 

 the quill gnat is good too. A grayling, though he is not 

 difficult, unless very much whipped over, to rise to your 

 fly, is scarcely so easy to basket. It is not at all uncom- 

 mon for him to rise four or five times, sometimes refusing 

 altogether, and sometimes taking after all. A trout seldom 

 rises fairly above twice, and if he refuses twice you may 

 leave him, as you do more harm than good in casting over 

 him. Not so with a grayling ; after three or four rises, 

 give him a minute, and then come over him again either 

 with the same or a fresh fly, and he will as often as not 

 fasten. 



When you have hooked a grayling, your next job is to 

 land him ; and here, though his play, as I have said, is by 

 no means so lively and varied as that of the trout, yet is 

 the kind of resistance he makes more dangerous to the 

 hold you have of him than the running to and fro of the 

 trout ; for your grayling tries the hold of the hook in every 

 possible way, and from every opposite point and direction 

 of that hold, and usually hangs all his weight on the line 

 at the same time. Having a very soft and delicate mouth, 

 it is common enough for them to break away ; and the 



