THE GRAYLING. 225 



On this of course one can only come to the 

 material comparison of results, and think how 

 a dry fly catch on a bright October day has 

 shown up, or paled, beside that of another 

 angler who has taken them down stream. I 

 have had a blank on the Dove and Manifold 

 in a heavy water, when others have taken 

 perhaps two brace ; but on the other hand have 

 been fortunate in Dovedale in attracting a few 

 specimen fish when the wet fly had only been 

 swallowed by quarter pounders. In Hants I 

 have never seen downstream fishing practised. 



On a good day the dry fly method is 

 valuable enough to take more grayling than 

 any fair sized creel will hold. 



It will sometimes enable you to drop a twenty 

 ouncer into a tussock of grass or dock leaves 

 every half hour, or quarter of a mile, during 

 one's way up stream ; to be picked up in the 

 dusk on the way home, or even the next 

 morning. An entry on the back of a last 

 year's trout license gives Trafalgar Day, nine 

 grayling : fifteen and a half pounds. That 

 too had never counted a full dozen of small 

 fish, either put back or given to similar sized 

 urchins on the banks whales to be placed head 

 foremost into their pickle bottles, which they 

 or their parents had for supper. Nor did it 

 count two brace well over a pound each I 

 can remember giving to four navvies on the 

 railway bank, who were cooking something on 

 the line at their midday meal. 



That was a typical grayling day almost too 



Q 



