48 NORTH-COUNTRY FLIES. 



regular order, arranged apparently in strings, and the strings 

 wound firmly into a ball. These eggs are deposited in the 

 water and when, in due time, they are hatched, the young 

 larvae crawl under stones and other places where shelter can 

 be found. They prefer the running parts of rivers to the 

 deeps, and any little eddy will suit them. Whilst the insects 

 are in this state trout feed ravenously upon them, the surface 

 food which the fish get up to the middle of May being a 

 mere fraction of the amount they pick up in the way of insect 

 larvae, of which that of the stone-fly is, at all times and in 

 all rivers where it exists, their favourite. When the larvae of 

 the stone-fly are just assuming the pupae state, preparatory to 

 becoming perfect flies, they crawl almost out of the water and 

 take shelter under the edges of stones near the water's edge. 

 At that time, with the exception of the stone-fly itself, and 

 that is not much more killing, the pupae or creepers are the 

 most magnificent baits you can set before a trout. 



It is commonly stated that Yorkshire trout will not take 

 the creeper. To speak plainly, this is arrant nonsense. 

 The writer has himself fished it successfully and regu- 

 larly on the Wharfe, and it only needs to be fished 

 properly and at the right time to convince anglers that it 

 is simply irresistible. Why, indeed, should the trout in 

 Yorkshire rivers differ from any other ? They take the 

 stone-fly ravenously; why not the creeper, which is only 

 another form of that fly ? It is fished on the Ribble ; it is 

 universally fished on the Eden ; and it is fished on the Scotch 

 rivers, having been introduced there by Carlisle anglers 

 who were laughed at for their pains. But the laughter 

 turned to wonder when at the day's close the creeper- 

 fishers had twice as many fish as the fly-fishers. 



There is only one part of the season at which the creeper 

 is of use to the angler, and that is when in the course of 

 nature he is about to make a further change in his condition 



