70 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



which tumbles over the stones, these larvae are exposed 

 and carried down-stream, and the trout get an unwonted 

 good chance at them, so that they are not as unknown 

 to the fish as the digging larvae. At the time of ascent 

 to the surface for hatching the trout get their real chance 

 at them, and it is in this subaqueous stage, rather than 

 in the stage of subimagines, that the fish feed on them 

 most ravenously. The hatches occur in flushes, and it 

 probably pays the fish better to slash the ascending nymph 

 (which they can see farther than they can see the floating 

 subimago) than to await the subimago passing almost 

 vertically overhead. 



The stages, therefore, in which the Ephemeridae which 

 have flat larvae are legitimately to be imitated are the 

 ascending nymphal stage and the winged stages, either 

 floating or flush with the surface. 



The swimming larvae are obviously much more familiar 

 to the trout. Living in vegetation or roaming over stones 

 and gravel they are easily routed out by the trout. A 

 familiar example of this is to be seen when the trout are 

 tailing. Then larvae, nymphs and shrimps are bustled out 

 of the weeds, and are captured in the open by the fish. 

 Then, again, at the period of ascent to hatch, these nymphs 

 are exposed in mid-water and near the surface, and are 

 swung down by the current to the waiting fish. An imita- 

 tion nymph or larva will at times take a tailing trout, but, 

 generally speaking, the stage in which an imitation has 

 its legitimate chance of success is at the time of ascent, or 

 any other time (such as weed-cutting) when the larvae 

 or nymphs are in open water exposed to the fish. The 

 wriggling action of its swimming cannot, of course, be 

 reproduced in the artificial fly, but when the swimming 

 larva, like the other larvae, comes up to hatch it is prac- 

 tically quiescent. 



