104 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



and gut to him wet, so as to have no surface drag (sub- 

 aqueous drag it is impossible to help). So the nymph 

 must be switched over to him. The first switch is a bit 

 short. The next lands the insect on the bank, where for 

 a moment or two it is hung up in the herbage, but, thank 

 goodness ! the hook comes away without damage. Two 

 or three times in a dozen casts the same thing occurs, but 

 still the fish is unscared and as busy as ever. At last the 

 fly pitches about a foot above him and a few inches to his 

 left. There is a quick turn of his head, a simultaneous 

 turn of our wrist, a violent lash of a broad tail, and the 

 black trout shoots indignant into the main, tears headlong 

 down-stream, hooping the little rod, which is at once too 

 weak and too strong for him. Alas, brave fish ! if for 

 the nymph of the mosquito that little channel was the 

 entrance in, for you it has been what an Irish friend of 

 mine termed " the entrance out." 



6. THE ALDER AND CANON K. 



For many years after I had become a fly-fisherman I 

 never did any good with the Alder. I first owned a fly 

 rod (of a sort) in 1874, but although I had read and loved 

 Charles Kingsley' s " Chalk-Stream Studies," it was not till 

 1904 that I had any success with his favourite fly. It is 

 true that my May and June-time fishing had been almost 

 exclusively on the Itchen (which seldom yields any results 

 to the Alder) and on the lower Kennet, when the May fly 

 alone brought up the trout. But in 1904 I took a holiday 

 in Bavaria which covered the first eighteen days of June, 

 and for some reason which I do not quite recall I took 

 with me a small stock of Black Alders purchased of Messrs. 

 Peek and Son, of 40, Gray's Inn Road, which appealed to me 

 as being of the genuine Kingsley tie. Kingsley, it will be 

 remembered, fished his Alder (and his Caperer or Sedge) 



