FLY FISHING FOR TROUT AND GRAYLING. 313 



Sunshine sometimes appears to improve the sport, and on ' a 

 glorious day in the golden-bright October,' with the most 

 ordinary care in casting towards the light, you may not only 

 take fish after fish along sixty yards of water, but on reaching 

 the end may retrace your steps and fish it over again with equal 

 success. When grayling are rising freely you may fill your basket 

 in perfectly smooth water by a long cast with the finest gut. 



A few words as to the style of casting which should be 

 adopted may not be amiss. 



In the first place, I care very little for up-stream or down- 

 stream fishing when grayling are my object. I cast right across 

 the ford, with just a shade of upward tendency. Whether in 

 working the stream I shall move up or down its course will be 

 matter of convenience depending principally on the sun and wind. 

 Grayling being chiefly found in the lower and broader reaches 

 of the river, and affecting the mid-channel rather than the sides, 

 cannot be reached by the up-stream cast unless you are wading 

 deep, and not always then. If you wade you had better move 

 up stream yourself to avoid disturbance, but you will still, I 

 think, succeed better by throwing across than ahead. Grayling 

 being, as I have said, gregarious, you will of course greatly im- 

 prove your chances by fishing with at least two flies, and in a 

 lair-sized river I seldom use less than three. Here the cross- 

 throw has an obvious advantage. I have killed doublets a 

 dozen times a day, with now and then three fish at a cast. 



' Fine and far off' should be the fly fisher's maxim with 

 grayling even more than with trout. But not the less must he 

 study to throw as little shadow as possible. The grayling lies 

 chiefly in the open, and is easily to be approached under cover, 

 so that everything may depend on youi being on the right or 

 wrong side of the water. 



It should be borne in mind that the grayling shoots upwards 

 at the fly almost vertically, and, if there is any eddy, often 

 misses it. Throw over him again and again no matter how 

 quickly; you will have him at last I remember killing a good 

 fish at Leintwardine at his eleventh rise. As to the life-like 



