WHY DO THE FISH RISE? 133 



wings are fairly soft, have a great tendency to twist 

 a fine gut cast in such a way as to speedily work its 

 ruin. 



Many years ago I remember dressing some biggish 

 " wood flies," which had small sparrow quill feather 

 tips as wings, and the least drag in the water caused 

 them to spin and move in a most erratic manner, but 

 for all that many a brace of lusty trout were bagged 

 by them in a big deep mill pool on the river Aire. 

 Which reminds me of a beautiful trout of about a 

 pound weight, which had its home under an old tree 

 root just below some scaffolding we were using across 

 the river, and for six months we fed that fish daily, 

 he would rise to everything which had no line to it. 

 Beetles of all sorts, centipedes, worms, millepedes, 

 grass-hoppers, grass-bugs, flies, minnows, cockroaches, 

 wasp-grubs, all were tried, but put a line on ever so 

 line; and he became wildly excited and darted to and 

 fro and around the bait, but would have none of it 

 finally he went up the river in October and passed 

 from our ken. I have often wondered if he ever 

 returned to the old root or finally fell a victim to a boy 

 with hazel switch and crooked pin. 



There are other neglected friends for whom I 

 would say a word. I have often been surprised at the 

 neglect with which the Perlida are treated ; on many 

 streams they are more important than the Ephemera 

 and are easy of imitation, the large stone fly only 

 excepted. The large stone fly is a most deadly bait 

 when fished natural, and with care a passable imitation 



