52 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



a rise." If an American, he would say, " I had a strike." 

 The term " rise " is, therefore, used rather loosely — so 

 loosely that for the purpose of considering the subject 

 thoroughly it is desirable to start with a comprehensive 

 definition of what it is intended to cover by the term in 

 the course of this discussion. I propose, therefore, to use 

 the term here, not in the sense of indicating the break in 

 the surface caused by the movement of a trout in the act 

 of feeding on insect life, but as covering every movement 

 of the fish in the act of so feeding. 



Now trout inhabit waters of all degrees of pace and 

 stillness, and of all degrees of depth and shallowness. 

 In all of them they feed on insect life; and it must be 

 manifest to the merest tyro that differing conditions 

 produce differing evolutions in the act of feeding. The items 

 of insect nourishment absorbed by a trout are, in general, 

 individually small, and, as a mere matter of instinctive 

 natural economy, it could not pay a trout to expend in 

 securing his prey more effort than the nourishment produced 

 by the food would replace, or even so much, if he is to live 

 and thrive. 



From this reasoning one can see why big trout tend to 

 feed on the natural fly less and less, and are often only to be 

 tempted by the May fly or a big sedge. They prefer to 

 spend their efforts in securing prey of a size which will more 

 than repay the effort expended in securing it. From this 

 cause the older trout are apt to become cannibals. For the 

 same reason the trout of comparatively gentle and not too 

 deep streams, where the fly is secured with the minimum 

 expenditure of effort, will continue to be fly-feeders till 

 they have reached a greater size than the trout of faster 

 streams or of deeper, slow streams or lakes, where the 

 coarse fish and the life of the river or lake bottom present 

 larger individual items of diet in sufficient profusion. 



