SPECIAL TACTICS FOR GRAYLING. 195 



with fishermen, the fish generally rise for the most 

 part close to the opposite bank, in most cases close to 

 the edge of the water. The plan to practise in these 

 circumstances is to cast directly out upon the opposite 

 bank, and allow the end to drop in a casual sort of way 

 into the water, where it is generally seized instantly. 

 Fly-fishing for grayling and trout are not altogether 

 identical, as we have elsewhere shown. Both are 

 frequently found, however, in the same water, and 

 are to be taken with the same cast of flies. Finer 

 tackle, as a rule, is required in the case of the former, 

 as also smaller and brighter flies. In most trout 

 streams of note grayling are found in profusion in 

 their lower portion, where the water flows more 

 serenely. Here they locate near the bottom, even 

 when surface feeding ; therefore if the dry floating-fly 

 is preferable in the case of the trout, it is doubly so in 

 that of the grayling, which, though perhaps more 

 expert as a fly-catcher habitually, rises a much greater 

 distance to absorb it. We contend, therefore, that in 

 the surface cast and draw method, the fish is scarcely 

 allowed a chance to get within seizing distance. This 

 once prevailing practice of trailing along the cast is 

 now being discarded, and deservedly so. How it 

 should have so long held sway we never could 

 conceive. That fish are occasionally taken by it we 

 know, and that they are more often abashed by it 

 we understand as being a perfectly rational result ; 

 but how the fisherman who trails his lines across, or 

 slantways over a stream, at so rapid a pace as to leave 

 a trail similar to that of a passing rat or water-hen, 



