CREEPER AND STONE-FLY FISHING. 51 



end of the abdomen. Use no shot : a No. 4 hook will 

 keep a jack sufficiently well down ; two hooks tear a jack to 

 pieces, and with one you will find the fly stand any amount 

 of fishing. And now, as to the reasons for recommending 

 the jacks, and one hook only. The latter follows the size 

 of the fly, as a matter of course ; but the smaller fly is 

 preferable because you will have quite as many rises at it 

 as you will at the female, and will not miss half the number 

 of fish ; simply because it is smaller, that is all. There 

 is naturally more difficulty for a trout to take into his 

 mouth a very big fly than a little one. When a trout 

 takes a stone-fly he sucks it in ; the male fly is sufficiently 

 small to be taken at one gulp, but not so the female ; the 

 fish holds it, or part of it ; it may be the large wings which 

 are spread abroad that he manages to hold before he 

 recovers himself for another effort to take it down, mean- 

 while the angler strikes, and the fish is lost. For this reason 

 some of the best stone-fly fishers who prefer the female, 

 break or clip the wings before casting. If you prefer to 

 fish the female fly, you must use two hooks, Nos. 2 or 3. 

 In fishing the stone-fly your gut trace should not be much 

 less than 12 feet long, in order to lessen the chances of 

 flicking the fly off. You will kill the greater part of your 

 fish off the thin edges of the flats ; under bushes, or by the 

 trunks of trees, the roots of which reach the water, or 

 about large stones, or, in fact, in any place where again the 

 instinct or intelligence of the trout tells them to look for 

 the flies. The 2Oth of June will see the last of the stone- 

 fly in nine seasons out of ten, and whilst it is on it may be 

 doubted whether even the beautiful green drake, the may- 

 fly of the south and the midlands, or any other fly which 

 sits upon the water, has equal fascination for trout. 



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