142 MOSTLY ABOUT TROUT 



on which my fly had caught. I managed to 

 find a weak toy substitute, which I took with 

 me for the evening rise, and found " my enemy ' : 

 awaiting me as usual, rising freely and con- 

 fidently. The usual game began. I think that 

 I must have put eight or ten different flies 

 over him, and he still rose confidently and 

 constantly at every natural fly on the surface, 

 ignoring altogether the artificial. There was 

 a great rise of fly, as there always is after rain 

 on this stream, and the road drainage had 

 coloured the water to some extent. It was 

 not, as it generally is, as clear as gin. 



My enemy went on steadily rising to natural 

 flies after I had succeeded in placing exactly 

 above his nose, and also an inch or two on 

 either side of it (in case he should be blind in 

 one eye), what seemed to me to be exact copies 

 of the fly on the water. He must have seen 

 every one of the eight or ten patterns I tried, 

 some of them three or four times, and still 

 he rose. The light was failing and I was giving 

 up in despair, as I had many times before during 

 the season, when I determined to make just one 

 more effort, using a fly as unlike as possible 

 to anything he was taking. I put up a pink 

 Wickham, tied on a hook of size 0. In sheer 

 weariness I made a poor cast, the fly dropping 



