4 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



difficulty be lured to slash at a dragging fly, the resemblance 

 of which to a natural insect is not marked. In such a place 

 the angler has often the choice between not catching the fish 

 and applying the appropriate method of the dragging fly. I 

 do not approve of the dragging fly on the open chalk stream, 

 but in the case of such a mill-head I should not hesitate to 

 use it, though confessedly it is, as a method, far less inter- 

 esting than is the taking of the trout with the genuine imita- 

 tion or representation or suggestion of the natural fly. 



Why does the trout take the natural fly ? Undoubtedly, 

 as the contents of his stomach prove, as food. Why does 

 he take the artificial fly ? In my opinion, in the vast 

 majority of cases, because he supposes it to be his food. 

 On occasion the motive may be curiosity, jealousy, 

 pugnacity, or sheer excess of high spirits. But if I did 

 not believe that the trout took the artificial fly not only as 

 food but as food of the kind on which he is feeding, the 

 real interest of trout fishing would be gone, so far as I am 

 concerned. That is the reason why, for me, trout fishing 

 on chalk streams transcends in interest any other kind of 

 trout fishing. For on streams where the fly is compara- 

 tively scarce trout are more apt to take any kind of insect 

 that may be on the menu, and are to be taken freely on 

 patterns which do not represent the fly on the water. 

 But chalk streams are rich in insect food. The duns 

 come out in droves, and the fish show a discriminating 

 determination to take only one pattern at a time, which 

 convinces me that they mean to have nothing which does 

 not satisfy them as being that on which they are feeding. 

 Even on chalk streams there are occasions when there are 

 exceptions to this rule, but in my experience, stretching 

 over thirty-five years, these occasions are few. 



