28 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH. A FLY 



within the experience of most of us when the water has been 

 covered with yellow duns and small pale olives, with a 

 sprinkling of iron-blue duns among them, and all else has 

 been neglected in favour of the iron blue. Here it is true 

 that the fly is quite distinct in colouring from the others on 

 the water at the same time; but on similar occasions, when 

 the iron blue is not to the fore, the trout will as a rule not 

 be mixing their diet, but confining themselves to fly of one 

 kind, and sticking to that, and that only, and letting all 

 else go by. 



So far we have been dealing with surface feeding mainly, 

 but where the trout are bulging it is not so easy to ascertain 

 what they are feeding on. It involves an autopsy — a 

 messy and uncertain business at best — for it is impossible 

 to say when and where the nymphs in the gullet were taken; 

 one can only make an approximate guess. It is true that 

 one generally finds one type of nymph predominating, but 

 one often finds odd specimens of other kinds, and it may be 

 suspected that the trout, accustomed where no rise is on 

 to forage among celery beds and other vegetation in search 

 of nymph and larva, shrimp and snail, is then much 

 more catholic in his tastes than when he is busy gathering in 

 the surface duns. If one puts down a soft muslin net 

 among celery beds just before the rise is expected one will 

 bring it up wriggling with larvae and nymphs of very 

 varying dimensions and colouring, from darkest olive to 

 something like bright dandelion and primrose. So it may 

 easily be true that the trout when nymphing may more 

 readily be induced to make a mistake than when feeding 

 steadily on the surface. There it is much more important 

 to get the right fly. And the right fly is that which 

 the trout finds to be the right colour. It does not 

 always seem the right colour to the angler, and so it 

 may fairly be questioned whether the trout sees colour 



