THE MOMENT 67 



I think it will often prove that when fish are rising what 

 is called short, whether they take the submerged fly or 

 baulk at it, as did the trout in the incident described above, 

 what is seen is no true rise in which the fly is taken, but 

 the belated after-effect of the trout's turn away under 

 water coming to the surface. This turn may vary enor- 

 mously in its degree of violence, and the gentler it is the 

 better the angler's hope that the fly has been taken and 

 that he may pull in his iron. 



VI 



THE MOMENT 



As Captain Cuttle is recorded to have remarked, " The 

 point of these observations lies in the application of them." 



I propose, therefore, to consider the rise at the artificial 

 fly, and to examine its indications as guides to the angler 

 telling him when to strike. 



There is, of course, no mystery about the taking of the 

 floating fly. Provided the angler is certain that it is his 

 fly that is taken, and not a natural fly an inch or more 

 away, he has only to strike more or less rapidly according 

 to the size of his fish. Matters are often nearly as simple 

 for the wet-fly fisherman if the trout comes up to his fly 

 with a swirl, but he has to remember that if his fly be 

 well sunk he must be very quick or he may be too late, for 

 the swirl is often (as shown above) an indication not that 

 the trout is there, but that he is gone. That is why in a 

 rough river a wet fly fished upstream should be fished on 

 a short line with most of it out of water, so that the trout 

 turning down may if possible be felt, or at any rate that 

 there may be no loss of time in pulling home when the 

 flash of the turn is observed. But often the trout takes so 



