FLY-FISHING. 173 



will fill his creel, and on lakes when they frequent reefs, 

 shoals, bars, and the neighborhood of rushes and weed 

 patches. These times are usually in the spring or early 

 summer, and in autumn, for in midsummer the Bass retire 

 to deep water, except in large, deep and cool lakes, when 

 this season is often the best, as the water has then become 

 of the right temperature to induce the fish to seek shallow 

 feeding grounds. 



The habits of the brook-trout have been carefully studied 

 by many generations of fly-fishers and naturalists, conse- 

 quently the trout-fisher knows that during the summer 

 months he will certainly find his quarry in the shallow 

 streams, slowly but surely ascending toward their spawning 

 grounds. He also knows that the big trout has a local 

 habitation under some root, or rock, or hollow bank, which 

 he holds by right of possession, and defends as bravely as 

 ever knight of old his feudal stronghold. He knows, fur- 

 thermore, that he would be considered daft to whip the 

 deepest pools of exposed water, or the mid-surface of deep 

 lakes or ponds. So, when the Bass-fisher knows the habits 

 of the Bass as well, there will be less speculation as to 

 whether or not he will rise to the fly. 



The stream should always be waded, if practicable, and 

 fished with the current, for it follows that wherever the 

 angler can wade, the water is about right in depth for fly- 

 fishing. He should cast about him in a semi-circle, he 

 being at the center and his casts being the radii, like the 

 spokes of a wheel ; then, lengthening his cast, he can de- 

 scribe the arc of a larger circle, and so cover all the water 

 within reach (within forty or fifty feet), giving preference, 

 of course, to the likeliest spots, as the eddies of bowlders 

 or half-submerged rocks, near logs, driftwood, shoals, bars, 



