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When they are so feeding, there is no food upon the surface, 

 and their eyes are intent upon the bottom. At such times 

 they rarely take an artificial fly well. The writer saw 

 a handsome dish of trout taken in a northern river by an 

 angler who fished caddis-baits using two on a number 3 

 hook and cast up stream, as you would fish a creeper. 



In one important matter the fancy of Yorkshire anglers, 

 and indeed of anglers all over the north of England, 

 has undergone a change during the past 25 years. It is 

 now conceded that a fly dressed hacklewise is generally to 

 be preferred to a winged imitation. The reasons for this 

 are not far to seek and are satisfactory. It is far more 

 difficult to imitate a perfect insect and to afterwards impart to 

 it a semblance of life in or on the water, than it is to produce 

 something which is sufficiently near a resemblance of an 

 imperfectly developed insect, struggling to attain the surface 

 of the stream. Trout undoubtedly take a hackled fly for the 

 insect just rising from the pupae in a half-drowned state ; 

 and the opening and closing of the fibres of the feathers 

 give it an appearance of vitality, which even the most 

 dexterous fly-fisher will fail to impart to the winged imita- 

 tion. Moreover, trout are not accustomed to see perfect 

 winged flies underneath the surface of the water ; a drowned 

 fly always looks drowned, and though hungry trout will 

 sometimes take a winged fly very well, it will generally 

 be found that the hackled flies account for the largest 

 number of fish. Perhaps too much attention is commonly 

 given to the wings of artificial flies, and too little to the 

 bodies. These remarks it must be understood are written 

 mainly of our Yorkshire and other north country rivers 

 which abound in rippling streams and rough broken water. 

 In the clear, smooth, gliding waters of the chalk streams of 

 Hampshire and a few other counties, the case is different. 

 There, fly-fishing as an art is perhaps at its greatest 



