120 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



lunch I did not waste time in waiting for a rise which 

 never came, but set to work to find tailers. There were 

 quite a few of them, and they were generally good fish. 

 It was often very difficult to get them to see the Green 

 Nondescript. Often one got hung up in flannel- weed ; at 

 times one lined them and so scared them, but if they saw 

 the Green Nondescript without having been scared they 

 took it with admirable readiness. I lost many owing to 

 the small size of the hook and to the softness of mouth 

 which seems to characterize the fish of this stream, but 

 the discovery converted an apparently hopeless day into 

 quite an interesting one. 



The second day was much like the first; wind in the 

 same quarter, stronger, if anything, than the previous day; 

 there was no fly, and the tailers did not begin till after 

 12.30, but after that hour I found one at work here and 

 there, wooed him with a Green Nondescript, and ended 

 by topping a nice three -brace basket with a trout of 

 two pounds three ounces. What the trout take Pope's 

 Green Nondescript for, or why they take it when tailing, 

 I have no idea; but it seems equally effective, dry or wet. 

 It must, however, be small. No. o was useless, No. 00 

 would take occasionally, but No. 000 seemed irresistible. 

 This is true not only of the brook in question, but of every 

 other chalk or limestone stream on which I have tried the 

 Pope on tailers. 



