116 . PROCEEDINGS WITH COMPETITORS. 



a rise, impatiently hoists his rod over his shoulder, and 

 stalks indignantly off in search of more favourable casts, 

 will be fruitlessly spending his time in tramping the 

 banks, while the industrious sportsman who adopts my 

 friend's maxim is filling his creel. The same plan will 

 hold good in all other kinds of fishing, as well as the fly. 

 It is also a needless waste of time to attempt to get be- 

 fore any other sportsman who may chance to have 

 possession of the water, however great an advantage the 

 first rod may have over all that follow ; for as soon as he 

 perceives an attempt made to pass him, he will at once 

 hoist the rod over his shoulder and play the same game. 

 Hence, if both the competitors are of an obstinate dis- 

 position, the affair will eventually resolve itself into 

 a pedestrian contest, instead of a day's fishing. The best 

 plan then for the angler to adopt is to quietly light his 

 pipe, and console himself with the fragrance of the 

 weed for half an hour or so, until the fish regain their 

 equanimity. 



In comparatively still and well-fed waters, where 

 the trout are surfeited to repletion with a superabundance 

 of insect food, their tastes are singularly capricious and 

 whimsical, and like all gourmands already over-gorged, 

 they will often disdainfully refuse the more substantial 

 flies, be they ever so correctly dressed, and only rise, ap- 

 parently, more for the sake of sport than for the purpose 

 of feeding. I have frequently observed them, on such 

 occasions, rise freely at the knots in the casting-line, 

 and entirely disregard the most taking flies attached to 

 it. In such cases as this, which happens generally in 



