NOTES ON THE MONTHS FOR FLY-FISHING. 217 



a quick hand and eye; and if either one or the other be 

 in any way defective, the angler should not strike at all, 

 but should let the fish hook himself. Striking forms 

 one of the most fertile sources of loss and disaster that 

 exists in the modern method of fly-fishing. This is par- 

 ticularly exemplified in the case of grayling, they being, as 

 an old writer quaintly expresses it, "excessively tender 

 about the chaps," and a very slight motion of the wrist 

 is ample to drive home the small hook. It is here that 

 quickness of sight and tenderness of touch are called into 

 play, in the absence of which requisites the delicate 

 tackle, or the hold of the hook, and sometimes even a 

 portion of the jaw of the hooked fish, will be broken 

 away by an impetuous rodster. Great care is therefore 

 essential in this matter. 



Whenever the grayling are not rising, unlike the trout, 

 they congregate in considerable numbers at the bottom of 

 deep holes; but when there is a good number of flies 

 upon the water, they quickly leave the deeps, and will be 

 found in the slow running streams, more especially where 

 the water averages a depth of three to four feet. Here 

 they rise freely, so long as the supply of flies is unfailing; 

 but upon these quitting the surface of the water, the fish 

 gradually retire again to the still deeps. The best flies 

 to use for grayling are the Grey-palmer, Willow and 

 Needle fly, the Little Pale Blue, and seasonable shades 

 of the Olive Dun order, which are all more or less 

 numerous at this time, if seasonable weather prevails. 

 The first-named is taken freely when the common wood 

 and house flies are stricken with cold, and are carried 

 upon the water by every gust of wind. Every naturalist 

 knows that these flies go blind in this and the following 

 month, but they do not all know that they furnish food 

 for fish. Father Izaak used to make this fly from gray 

 badger's hair: he terms it the Hearth fly; but there is 

 every reason for believing it to be the common house fly. 

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