34 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



X 



IN DUSK AND DARK 



The capacity of the trout for distinguishing flies in the 

 dusk or dark has often been the subject of comment. I 

 first noted it in September, 1888, on the Coquet, when, 

 the August dun being up, its spinners, after looking like 

 red-hot needles dancing in rays of the setting sun, were 

 later on the water. I was fishing the tail of a run under 

 trees with a team of three flies, all representing the spinner, 

 tied on eyed hooks with gut bodies dyed a flame-coloured 

 orange, a reddish furnace hackle, and wings from the 

 ruddy feather of a partridge's tail. One of my three flies 

 was winged from the portion of the partridge-tail feather 

 which is finely freckled with black, the others from the 

 unfreckled part of the same feather. On several evenings 

 I found the trout invariably selected the fly with the 

 freckled wing and entirely ignored the others. On a 

 Norwegian lake, fishing during the short July night when 

 the wind had dropped dead, I have found the same one of 

 a team of flies accepted again and again while the others 

 were ignored. On the chalk streams again, the ability 

 of the fish to draw fine distinctions at night must have 

 struck every observer. I recall one evening when the 

 trout were taking the natural blue-winged olive well. I 

 tried a Red Quill dyed orange on a No. 1 hook, after getting 

 my solitary Orange Quill soaked and slimy through killing 

 a brace ; but the trout would have none of it — though they 

 took the Orange Quill again when I had washed and dried 

 it. Yet the only distinction between the two patterns 

 was that the quill of the Orange Quill was plain condor, 

 and in the Red Quill it was the usual ribbed peacock. It 

 was dyed in the same dye in each case. In fact, the Red 



