SOME FLY DRESSING in 



seldom that one gets the wind to serve that length per- 

 fectly, but if one does it is well to seize the opportunity, 

 for the trout that haunt that bank run big for that part 

 of the Itchen, and I knew that near the bottom of the 

 length there was one particularly desirable trout. 



He did not keep me long before disclosing his position, 

 close up to the flags some thirty yards up. A little darkish 

 dun came over him and was intercepted, and then another 

 and another. I dropped down to the eddy at the bend and 

 netted out one of these little duns, and it seemed to me that 

 the fly which I picked from stock (dressed without the herl, 

 but otherwise precisely like the pattern last above described) 

 matched the natural fly with unusual precision. It was 

 about 9.30 when I delivered my first cast. It was after 

 eleven when, in despair after having tried at intervals a 

 whole series of patterns without having put my fish down, 

 I put on my herl-bodied dun of the morning. It was 

 accepted with the utmost confidence, and in a moment I 

 was battling with a two-pounder, which in due course came to 

 net. The only other fish which I found rising in the length, 

 a trout of about one and three-quarter pounds, followed 

 suit, and I thought I was in for a good thing. Alas ! the 

 rise, which was never more than scanty during that morning, 

 did not last me to the next bend. 



But the pattern had made an impression on me, and each 

 year since, as March has come round, I have tied for myself 

 and my friends a small supply, which indeed I find diffi- 

 cult to keep, so well has the pattern justified itself. Here 

 is an instance. 



My friend B. was a guest on the same water in July of 

 1919, and we sat down to wait for the beginning of the rise 

 a couple of hundred yards below the length above 

 described. Presently a trout began feeding with great 

 vigour in an eddy just off the centre of the current with 



