i6 



the minute causes which affect them and make a whole 

 river-full of fish indifferent to any kind of food we can set 

 before them we know absolutely nothing. We know that 

 most creatures feed at some part of each day, and that trout, 

 as indeed all other kinds of fish, invariably do so : and that 

 on some days they will feed ravenously upon surface food, 

 and on others, very sparingly. In the latter event no 

 doubt they make up the deficiency from the very minute 

 larvae and aquatic insects of all kinds with which the bottoms 

 of our rivers are plentifully studded. In the vast majority of 

 cases the very smallness of these living things defies any 

 attempt at imitation : but what the invisible causes may be 

 the changes in the temperature of the water or the air : the 

 colour of the sky ; an instinctive knowledge that rain is . 

 coming, and will bring food in the fresh which follows ; 

 or of thunder which may be terrifying ; or a score of other 

 perplexities which have troubled the observant angler we 

 know not : we only know, and perhaps there is a charm in 

 knowing it, that whereas to-day trout may feed upon winged 

 insects greedily in the midst of a tempest of lightning and 

 thunder, to-morrow, under precisely similar conditions, they 

 will be sulky, sullen, and immovable. 



It is not the purpose of this book to attempt to teach the 

 art of fly fishing ; the reader probably knows that experience 

 is the only good master, though something of the 

 fisherman's knowledge comes intuitively, and where the 

 keen eye of one man will pick out the likely spots 

 in a rippling stream, and see the quick rise of a trout, a 

 hundred others will miss them, because, as the great 

 father of fishers said, "angling is somewhat like poetry, 

 man is to be born so." A few general remarks may not, 

 however, be out of place, and it may first be briefly said that 

 half the secret of success is the secret of keeping out of 

 sight. A trout is wonderfully keen-sighted ; in clear water 



