SOME MORE FLY DRESSING 123 



being selected by the fish. A bare imitation would naturally 

 have legs as few and as short as the natural nymph or 

 larva, and, setting aside the difficulty of finding hackles 

 short enough to represent such legs with accuracy, the 

 imitation would look inert. 



I have used imitations of nymphs on chalk streams for 

 some fifteen seasons with a measure of success when the 

 trout were not surface feeding, and I use them upstream 

 to feeding fish, and it is my observation that a mere bare 

 nymph without hackle is not so successful as one which 

 is lightly hackled with a short hackle. It is my belief 

 that the artificial nymph lightly hackled with a soft hackle 

 (whether small bird's or hen's) is taken for the natural 

 nymph in the act of hatching, and that in the case of the 

 artificial nymph lightly dressed with a bright cock's hackle 

 of a blue shade, the hackle, being almost water colour, 

 leaves the body of the artificial exposed, tends to arrest 

 speed of sinking, and probably lends the nymph a certain 

 degree of action in the water which suggests life. 



Then in practically all my nymph patterns that are not 

 hackled with a soft feather I use a good deal of seal's fur 

 in the dubbing, which gives an effect of brilliance and 

 translucency, to which again a fine gold wire ribbing in 

 some cases lends aid. 



All this is very crude, no doubt, and I can cordially 

 concur in the often expressed wish that some wet-fly 

 enthusiast would set to work and make exact reproductions 

 of nymphs and larvae in the same way as Mr. F. M. Hal- 

 ford treated the floating fly. And these should be sub- 

 mitted to searching tests, not only by one angler, but by 

 a large number of skilled men. 



That distinguished angler who writes over the signa- 

 ture " Jim- J am " has published, both in the Field and 

 in his book, a description of a method of imitating nymphs 



