TROUT HABITS; LURES AND USE 



rod down and himself out of sight of the fish 

 as much as possible. A rise or surface-feeding 

 fish is indicated by a mere dimpling of the 

 water, with some bubbles, or by decided ripple- 

 rings, and is accompanied by no perceptible 

 sound or, again, by a decided commotion. This 

 silent "dimpling" may mean either a small 

 fish or a very big one. (But if he is a large trout, 

 and you actually can see him rising to your 

 cast, don't strike quickly.) When our patient, 

 keenly observant, and persistent angler does spot 

 his rise, he then stalks the fish, stealthily as 

 an Indian, making a wide detour from the bank, 

 and gets below him, the approach to the favor- 

 able casting position being made with greater 

 caution than ever, and frequently in a crouch- 

 ing or even crawling attitude. Screening him- 

 self as much as compatible with efficient cast- 

 ing, the fisherman now, and not till now, gets 

 actually to work. 



Major Stewart Edward White, in The Forest, 

 has a vivid passage about still-hunting the trout 

 from a canoe on the absolutely quiet water of 

 a wilderness lake probably never previously 

 fished by a white man "Hour after hour we 

 stole here and there like conspirators. Where 

 showed the circles of a fish's rise thither crept 

 we to drop a fly, softly like down, on their center 

 as in the bull's-eye of a target." 



Upon this matter of the dry fly, Mr. Richard 

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