142 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



except over rising fish, and prefer to remain idle the entire 

 day rather than attempt to persuade the wary inhabitants 

 of the stream to rise at an artificial fly, unless they have 

 previously seen a natural one taken in the same position. 

 Although respecting their scruples, this is, in my humble 

 opinion, riding the hobby to death, and I for one am a strong 

 advocate for floating a cocked fly over a likely place, even 

 if no movement of a feeding fish has been seen there. . . . 

 There is no doubt that an angler catching sight of a trout 

 or grayling lying near the surface, or in position for feeding, 

 can often tempt him with a good imitation of the fly on 

 the water floated accurately over him at the first cast." 



Would he have denied to the wet-fly man — had he 

 believed that the wet fly paid — -the same privilege as he 

 would accord to the dry-fly man ? I see no reason to 

 suppose so. But it will have been seen from these 

 quotations that at that time at any rate the idea of the 

 wet fly being used much as the dry fly, and cast only to 

 rising fish, to fish seen " hovering " in position to feed, 

 and to likely places carefully chosen, had apparently not 

 occurred to him. In fact, the comparison which he has 

 made is between the dry-fly practice of chalk streams and 

 the unintelligent wet-fly practice of rough rivers, applied, 

 if you like, to chalk streams, and not between dry-fly 

 practice and wet-fly practice deliberately thought out and 

 adapted to use on chalk streams. 



He says of the wet fly, it is true, "It is said that there 

 are days when, even in the clearest of them, the sunk fly 

 is found more killing than the floating one. This may 

 possibly be true, but in many years' experience such days 

 have not fallen to my lot, and I should be inclined to 

 consider them as happening ones, or, in other words, as 

 the rare exceptions which go to prove the rule." 



I propose to give later on my reasons for doubting 



