42 Wet- Fly Fishing 



Holiday Sketches ; " but there, we cannot 

 all think the same; and in the case of a 

 wet-fly fished up-stream, the "pull" (or 

 stoppage of the line), means that the trout 

 has the fly in his mouth already, and to 

 delay to put the hook home, must surely 

 be folly, then. A shy trout often makes a 

 noisy, frightened " boil " at an artificial fly, 

 and this has given rise, I imagine, to the 

 notion of a trout drowning a fly with its tail, 

 in order to pick it up, afterwards. Could 

 that trick be verified, it would surely be 

 a proof that certain trout decline to take 

 an artificial fly till they have examined 

 it leisurely from under the water than 

 which theory, what could be more ridiculous ? 

 It reminds me of nothing so much 

 this tempest in a tea-pot, this ridiculously 

 obtrusive and fussy rise of a timid trout 

 at a small fly, with a sting in his tail of 

 nothing, I repeat, so much as the spectacle 

 of a young and charming but timid and 

 shortsighted lady, charging across a busy 

 London street, to greet a brother or husband 

 whom she is anxious to see only to find 

 out, at the last moment, that he is a 

 stranger. The sudden halt to so much 

 momentum ; the revulsion of feeling, from 

 joy to fear, and the confusion consequent, 



