

THE HAUNTS OF TROUT 121 



is a grand feast preparing and they reserve themselves for it. 

 Dead low water is not, as a rule, desirable. Sudden and violent 

 changes of weather are not favourable to good takes, neither 

 are extremes of weather favourable, as excessive wind, rain, 

 heat, or cold. Frost will not always deter them if there be 

 warm glimpses of weather at mid-day ; but with frost, even- 

 ings and mornings are not to be relied on. The angler should 

 never go out on the day after a flood ; a flood always brings 

 down much food, and the fish are generally gorged and lazy. 

 If the water clears well the day after may be a good day ; 

 If it clears slowly, the day after that will be found even better. 

 Fish do not always lie in the same spots when feeding ; 

 much depends upon the weather. The angler should remember 

 that the fish always particularly in larger streams follow 

 the food ; * according, therefore, to the weather let him study 

 which part of a run or stream is likely to contain the most food, 

 for here he will assuredly find the most and best fish. In a flood, 

 the fish will be all over the river feeding, and he will take fish 

 in spots which it would be utterly useless to fish when the river 

 is down to its natural level again. The neck of every little run 

 between two stones or weeds, the eye or eddy in each stream, 

 will then have its feeding fish. The eye of the stream, I may 

 take occasion to say, is always the most favourable spot for 

 fish. By the eye I mean the first good eddy on the inside of 

 any stream after it commences its shoot. Into this almost 

 every straw or insect is swept in its downward course, to be 

 delivered up to the stream again after it has made a revolution 

 or two, perhaps a yard or so lower down, and here the fish 

 are on the watch for food. In hot bright weather, the fish 

 will be at the tails of the pools, on the gravelly shallows, more 

 often sunning themselves than feeding, however. Still the 

 angler, by letting his fly work down from the head of the stream 

 to the end, may perhaps pick up a fish, but the hooking of 

 one fish will be the signal for all the rest to rush up into safety 

 and deep water. In hot weather, too, the best fish may be 

 observed under the deep shades of overhanging boughs, lying 

 within an inch or two of the surface, and merely lifting their 

 noses very quietly to the top, as fly, beetle, or grub comes 

 floating to them. Whenever the angler sees a fish rising in 



* In small brooks a good trout takes up his berth, which is generally a 

 likely one for the run of the food, and does not wander far from it. The 

 stream is his purveyor. In larger rivers they are more of wanderers and 

 have to follow the food, while every flood will alter the currents and runs. 

 F. F. 



