294 SALMON AND TROUT. 



fibres forming its wings and legs. Let your trout flies be 

 played upon a similar principle, but more variously, and more 

 down stream. Let the tail fly seem struggling in vain to resist 

 the current which carries him down, and the near dropper dip 

 enticingly as if in laying eggs. A tremulous motion of the 

 wrist is sometimes most alluring. In the stillest waters, on a 

 warm day, I have killed good fish by throwing far, and then 

 suffering my whole cast to sink ere I moved my flies. Trout 

 will take them thus sunk if they do not see the ripple of the 

 line at the surface. 



We will now suppose your fish to have risen the next 

 point is to hook him, if indeed your line is not so taut that 

 you feel he has hooked himself. To do this you must ' strike,' 

 as the common term is ; which has been correctly, if not satis- 

 factorily, explained as ' doing something with your wrist which 

 it is not easy to describe.' Is this 'something' to be done 

 quickly or slowly, sharply or gently ? Not to distinguish too 

 minutely, we would say, strike a salmon more slowly than a 

 trout, a trout than a grayling, a lake fish than a river one, and, 

 generally speaking, a large fish than a small one. As to the 

 degree of force, a gentle twitch generally suffices at all events, 

 more is dangerous with any but very strong tackle. 



Note especially, that in order to strike quick, you must 

 strike gently. This requires illustration. Lay your fly rod on 

 a long table, place a cork eighteen inches in front of the top ; 

 grasp it as in fly fishing, and strike hard, making the butt the 

 pivot. The cork will be knocked off by the forward spring of 

 the upper half of the rod before any backward action can take 

 place, and thus much time will have been lost before the line 

 can be in the smallest degree tightened. 1 Remember, too, the 

 great increase of risk to your tackle when the line is thus 

 slackened before sustaining a severe jerk. Nine fish out of ten 



1 The remark naturally suggests itself that, if so, a strong forward move- 

 ment from the butt of the rod, by producing a reverse action at the point, 

 would be the quickest mode of striking. And this is mathematically certain ; 

 but a trout so hooked would be immediately released by the slackening oi the 

 line when the backward reaction took place. 



