110 A SCOTTISH FLY-FISHER 



they have acquired energy enough to maintain their 

 position in all but the strongest of currents and may be 

 found in numbers even where the water, rushing im- 

 petuously over and among the boulders, threatens to 

 sweep them away. 



The water is in good condition for fly-fishing when 

 there has been just sufficient rain to produce a slight 

 addition to its volume and diminish its crystalline trans- 

 parency or when, after a flood, it is beginning to subside 

 and is becoming clear again. Which of these conditions 

 is the better, I do not know, but I am disposed to give 

 my preference to the former ; the rising water stimulates 

 the appetite of the fish and excites in them the expecta- 

 tion of the means of gratifying it, while a spate leaves 

 them full to repletion and disinclined to feed until, in 

 the course of time, they have recovered from the sur- 

 feit. The amber-colour so frequently insisted on does 

 not seem to me a necessary factor in the angler's cal- 

 culations. Whether a stream assumes that colour or 

 not surely depends on the geology of the bed it occu- 

 pies, or of the country through which it flows. The 

 trout are undisturbed by a moderate increase in the size 

 of the stream, but a flood drives them from their usual 

 haunts, and they are then to be sought, with but partial 

 success, in quiet back-waters and by the shallow margins 



