49 



nature he is about to make a further change in his condition 

 and comes out of the water to have room to do it. It has 

 been noticed, and a long succession of generations of trout 

 have noticed it as well as man, that when a creeper feels the 

 desire for wings coming over him he commonly climbs upon 

 a stone hence perhaps Stone-fly ; now, to get upon the 

 stone or out of the river he must leave his shelter under 

 the stone and go abroad ; it happens very often that, in 

 the one case he is caught by a little stream too strong for him 

 and swept into a rapid ; in the other he loses his hold upon 

 the stone and falls back into the water. In both cases the 

 trout are there on the look out for him. The proper time, 

 therefore, to fish the creeper is just when he begins to move, 

 preparatory to his final stage. This may be told from the 

 time when you begin to find him under stones close to the 

 water's edge, which in warm spring weather will be about 

 the 24th of April. From then up to the appearance of the 

 Stone-fly itself he can distance all comers. 



The creeper should be fished with two hooks, his head up 

 the line, z>., with his front legs just resting on the gut, the 

 bottom hook put in below the thorax, and the upper one 

 right through the side, under the chin, as shown on plate 12. 

 Choose a large creeper for preference, and trout often take 

 the yellow ones better than those which are altogether black. 

 For creeper-fishing your gut trace should be 10 or n 

 feet long, and you must fish up-stream. The lower and 

 clearer the water is the more chance of sport Fishing a 

 line about one and a-half times the length of your rod, 

 throw your creeper into the neck of a strong running stream 

 the stronger the better just such a place as your eye 

 tells you any helpless atom is likely to be carried to by the 

 force of water ; the trout know the place and are on the 

 look out. In a fine water your creeper will sink of itself, 



and you will require no shot on your cast. Trout never 



D 



