108 TROUT FISHING 



river ; indeed, bearing the former precepts for 

 small rapid streams in mind, he should, whenever 

 practicable, no matter where he may be, apply 

 them ; the result will be, that on many occasions, 

 when fishing, perhaps, with a good fisherman of 

 larger streams, he will fill his basket, when 

 his friend of more limited knowledge will kill 

 scarce a fish. This has actually occurred, that 

 two fishermen have i>een together on the same 

 large stream (the Taw) ; one was for large stream 

 fishing a better fisherman than the other, who 

 however was greatly superior on small streams in 

 bright weather. The big stream fisherman (an 

 Exe man) could do nothing; the small stream 

 man killed a large basketful. The reason was, 

 that the weather and the stream brought the field 

 of operations to a near similitude of the small 

 stream, and consequently, far removed it from the 

 type of large streams : the one fisherman could not 

 accommodate his style to the conditions present 

 the other could ; the one therefore failed the 

 other was successful. 



En fishing with the artificial fly, if we are on 

 dull, slow, and deep water, we must consider our 

 flies as pure imitations of the natural insect, and 

 our practice must be adapted to our intention of 

 deceiving the trout ; if we are on rapid small 

 streams, our principles are entirely different, and 

 we no longer consider our fly in the light of a 

 representation of some insect on the water. The 

 two principles must be practically understood, and 

 when we have thoroughly become conversant with 



