U2 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



occasional incursions into the current. He was taking a 

 little dark dun, and taking it on the surface. I caught one 

 of the flies, and my friend matched it, as he thought, per- 

 fectly from his box. " You had better try one of my 

 July duns," I said, offering him one. He wouldn't have 

 it, and I knotted it on to my own cast. For the next 

 twenty minutes B. besieged that trout, casting to him 

 with great skill, trotting his fly down the edge of the eddy, 

 and never letting it get into the drag of it. The trout 

 went on rising busily, taking flies quite close to B.'s, but 

 never taking B.'s fly. At last B. said: " I can do nothing 

 with this fish. You see what you can do with him, while 

 I change my fly." I put my July dun to him, and the first 

 time it covered him it was joyfully accepted, and B. pres- 

 ently netted out for me a beautiful fish in first-rate 

 condition, two pounds six ounces in weight. 



Then he said: " If you don't mind, I'll reconsider my 

 refusal of your pattern." So I gave him the only other one 

 I had, and we moved up to the next fish. Sure enough, 

 the first time the fly went over him he had it, and B.'s 

 conversion was complete. 



Many angling books give dressings of the July dun, 

 usually with bodies dubbed with a mixture of blue fur and 

 yellow wool, or fur of sorts; Ronalds among others. 

 Curiously enough, I find no mention of the July dun in 

 any of Mr. F. M. Halford's works. It would be strange, 

 however, if all those who have given the July dun in the 

 past were wrong, and I should hesitate to believe it, even 

 if my own observation of the occurrence of a little darkish 

 dun in July were not confirmed by the success which, 

 from 1908 onwards, I have had in July with a little dark 

 nymph tied, as described on p. 32 of "Minor Tactics of the 

 Chalk Stream," to imitate a little dark olive nymph which 

 I took from the mouth of a trout in that month in 1908. 



