136 TROUT FISHING 



big wet flies in windy or rainy weather, a method 

 which our forefathers employed because they knew 

 no better way of catching the fish, except perhaps 

 the minnow or the worm. 



The brief answer to this supposition is that minor 

 tactics is different from ordinary dry-fly fishing 

 only in the matter of the fly. You mark down your 

 feeding fish, or your fish that looks like feeding, 

 in exactly the same way. You take exactly the 

 same precautions of approach, you cover him in 

 exactly the same manner, and to the best of your 

 ability you offer him an imitation of something on 

 which he is feeding. But you so arrange things 

 that the fly comes down to him beneath, instead 

 of on, the surface of the water, because he is taking 

 subaqueous and not surface food. This, at any 

 rate, is a sufficiently accurate general statement 

 of the case. Individual anglers may elaborate their 

 proceedings by seeking to impart a little motion to 

 their fly as it comes down, so that it may the better 

 imitate a live nymph. Others may try to give an 

 impression of " aliveness " to the artificial by careful 

 selection and arrangement of the materials from 

 which it is built. But without such elaboration 

 the method briefly described will serve and will 

 catch fish. 



A point which I believe might weigh favourably 

 with some of the opponents of minor tactics is the 



