THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 273 



sent themselves to the fish, I cannot truly tell. They certainly cannot 

 present themselves in the exact living forms of natural insects, but their 

 appearance must be something similar. If I were to guess, I should say 

 that the artificial flies for the common trout, grayling, and some of the 

 carp tribe, present the appearance of drowning, or drowned natural 

 flies of living insects struggling on, or a little beneath the surface of 

 the water. I do not think this surmise fanciful. At any rate, the fly- 

 fisher should endeavour to present his artificial baits to the fish as 

 deceptively as possible, namely, by giving them as natural an appearance 

 as may be. He must cause them to drop lightly on the water, because 

 the natural fly does so ; he must cause them to float down stream as near 

 the surface as he can, because the natural fly moves upon the surface of 

 the water ; and he must impart tremulous, or fitful motion to his flies 

 a sort of fluttering, generally speaking, being the best. All this is 

 comprehended by the expression 'humouring' one's flies. To do it, 

 the moment your flies alight upon the water, hold up your rod, so that 

 the drop-fly next to it may appear skimming the surface ; the other two, 

 if properly proportioned and attached to the casting-line, being ever so 

 little under water. If you allow your upper dropper to be under water, 

 all the flies on the line below that dropper will be sunk too deeply to 

 appear living insects to the fish, and therefore any motion you may give 

 them will not be attractive. When you keep your last dropper (second 

 fly from the stretcher or tail-fly) on the surface of the water, impart to 

 it a very slight skipping motion, by a tremulous shake of the rod, and 

 the flies that are just under water will receive the most natural move- 

 ments you can give them. Never drag your trout-flies straight across 

 the water towards you ; and never, unless they be flies for salmon or 

 sea-trout, work them against the current." 



When a fish rises to the fly, do not strike rapidly or roughly. A 

 gentle, obliquely upwards twist of the wrist, made the moment you feel 

 your fish, will be sufficient to hook him. Strike not at a rise, but a little 

 after it ; and not at all, unless sensation tells you the fish has touched or 

 seized the fly. If a fish rises and misses the fly, and you strike at him, 

 thereby whipping the fly unnaturally away from him, he will hardly be 

 tempted to rise again ; but if you do not, and go on humouring your 

 flies until it be necessary to make another cast, in all probability the 

 trout will come again. When hooked, do not lean heavily on your fish, 

 but let him go, holding him in hand, with an upright rod, and taut, but 

 not pulling, line. Of such a line give him enough ; for the more of it he 

 has to swim away with and carry, the sooner will he be exhausted 

 when you feel that he is, wind up your winch-line slowly, presenting 

 the butt of the rod towards the fish, and the latter will yield, and come 

 towards you. If he be a small fish, lift him out of the water by an easy, 

 long, upwards jerk in the direction of the shore. If large, lead him 

 gently, head foremost, towards your sunken landing-net ; and when his 

 head and shoulders are within the hoop of the net, lift it up, and you 

 have a captive past escaping. Never thrust, nor let your attendant 

 thrust, the net at the fish, lest, scared at such rude proceeding, he break 

 away by the force of a fierce final struggle, or lest he or the line be 



