172 THE SCIENTIFIC ANGLER. 



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 fish are fre- 

 quently 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 slant ways over a stream, at so rapid a 

 pace as to leave a trail similar to that of a passing rat or 

 water-hen, can imagine he is extending to the flies a 

 natural and seductive action, we confess is entirely beyond 

 us. The whole of the land-flies appear naturally out of 

 their element upon the water, and are at the mercy of 

 wind and wave, especially upon broken water; upon the 

 stills they certainly have a little more power, so as to en- 

 able them to essay a paddling excursion with a view to 

 escape impending perils; but even here, either the float- 

 ing, or the sunk, or drowned fly is found preferable to 

 the insane system of trailing. The native water insects, 

 as every fly-fisher worthy of the name knows, are quite 



