ON RAPID STEKAM3. 21 



experience and observation, but we may assist 

 most materially our learning on this subject, by a 

 little consideration. If we were now considering 

 trout fishing on some river of sluggish and mono- 

 tonous course, or one whose course and speed 

 varied only at long intervals, it would be most 

 easy to pronounce the most favourable localities, 

 as weirs, eddies, &c., &c. : but to attempt to 

 enumerate the many different places a trout will 

 lie in, where we have to do with rapid streams, 

 varying in their character every five yards 

 nay, whose very breadth at once shows variety in 

 appearance, and choice feeding spots here and 

 there at intervals to describe or arrange syste- 

 matically such confusion of water is, I say, im- 

 possible; and yet of all points to be attended to, 

 none demands more exact knowledge than the 

 precise spot every trout lies in; after all, a little 

 common sense rightly directed will guide us very 

 safely. Should we be fishing with the artificial 

 fly, we, of course, are most likely to catch those 

 fish which are mostly feeding on the natural fly, 

 and consequently we should cast our fly in the 

 most favourable manner, in such spots as we 

 believe a trout would select for capturing his flies 

 with the greatest ease to himself, where indeed he 

 will find most flies on the water, and where he 

 will not be foiled in his chase after the fly,' when 

 it has alighted on the water and is being hurried 

 off by the stream, which he himself is swimming 

 against. So we may find the trout lurking by the 

 sides of any little current, caused by the rush of 



