Fly-Fishing for Troxit 45 



in fishing fifty yards in a small stream running partly 

 through a large open field and partly through bushes, 

 fishing from the left bank. Twelve were taken on a 

 brown palmer, four on a dark-gray midge, and two on 

 a tiny yellow-gold-brown fly. I fished three hours, in 

 which time I received exactly two hundred and fifteen 

 strikes; eighteen, as I have said, proved killing. I 

 fished stealthily up andjiown the stream, hiding here 

 and there and making the most difficult of casts at all 

 times. I went up and down the little stream a half 

 dozen times, never going into the wood, but merely 

 fishing from where the stream came out of the wood 

 to where it hid itself again beyond the field. Part of 

 the water I fished, as I say, was in underbush, but I 

 did not leave the field. 



Now I am going to show you how the tastes of trout 

 varied by minutes, in two instances at least, and I 

 desire you to know every little detail. To well con- 

 vince you that the casts I made were difficult, I will 

 say that my line became fastened in twigs, leaves, and 

 bushes every other toss. I had to put the flies through 

 little openings no larger than the creel head and take 

 chances of getting the leader caught while on the way, 

 and after it was there and on its return. I sometimes 

 whipped twenty times at a little pool before I reached 

 it. There were logs, branches, mosses, cresses, leaves, 

 and grasses to avoid. The water in parts was swift 

 and still, narrow, shallow, and deep, sometimes be- 

 ing four feet wide and three feet deep, and then ten 

 feet wide and three inches deep; sometimes running 

 smartly over bright grasses or pebbles and light in 

 color, and in other places lying dark and still in pools 

 made by logs and deep holes. 



A tyro would have fished the ground in ten minutes 



