88 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



the floating ephemera must be imitated either in the dun 

 stage, dry with cocked wings, or spent and semi-submerged 

 with soft dun hackles, or in the spinner stage floating, 

 or semi-submerged with bright cock's hackles to represent 

 the wings. He would recognize that on the surface, 

 whether floating or semi-submerged, all fly wings and most 

 fly bodies present to an eye looking up to them a certain 

 degree of translucency. He would infer that to produce 

 that effect of translucency upon the eye of the trout he 

 would have to use materials which are either themselves 

 translucent, or which produce by reflected light the effect 

 of translucency, like some quills in certain lights. But 

 as dubbing will transmit light from whatever quarter, 

 whereas quills will only reflect it if looked at from the 

 proper point of view, he will infer that dubbings of suitable 

 colours have advantages over quills. He will realize that 

 the vision of the trout is not identical with that of man, 

 and if he be a skilled optician he may deduce what that 

 difference is, and how it affects the game. With the 

 nymphal or larval imitation, he will see that translucency 

 is even more important than in the case of the winged fly, 

 and that dubbing has the advantage of quickly absorbing 

 water and sinking his fly. This is, I think, as far as 

 common sense, unassisted by experience on the riverside, 

 would take him. But think of the advance. All the 

 unnatural horde of so-called imitations of natural flies 

 which are used under conditions in which no natural insect 

 is ever seen, would be relegated to the true category of 

 lures, and the angler whose business it is to take the feeding 

 trout with the simulacrum of what he is feeding on would 

 know what he was about, and if he chose to use any of the 

 abominations of the past, he, at least, would do so with 

 open eyes. At last he would be a free man, escaped from the 

 bondage of the past. Ex mortud manu, libera nos Domine. 



