THE FLY 75 



to my sorrow, entirely ignorant of the highly-cultured 

 fish that swim the Hampshire rivers and, lest I be 

 accused of harbouring an unjust frame of mind, refrain 

 from expressing an opinion on the subject. Of our 

 northern waters, however, I am not without some little 

 knowledge, and on them I have never seen occasion to 

 resort to the use of the dry-fly ; I have found the trout, 

 if inclined to accept anything at all, quite prepared to 

 take a lure beneath the surface. That, to be sure, does 

 not seem to be the universal experience. I have read 

 of an angler who is satisfied that on the occasion he 

 describes his creel would have been empty but for the 

 employment of the dry-fly. One is curious to learn 

 how he knows. Since he does not appear to have 

 given the trout an opportunity of considering the wet- 

 fly, one wonders by what process of reasoning he 

 persuades himself that it would not have proved as 

 enticing as the other. I have rarely had any difficulty, 

 especially in the evening, in securing sport by lightly 

 casting my fly into or above the ring made by a rising 

 fish and permitting it to sink. When, in these circum- 

 stances, the wet-fly was taken at all, it was taken so 

 readily that the dry-fly offered no advantages. My 

 efforts, it is true, were not always suitably rewarded. 

 Sometimes it happened that, in their inexplicable 



