SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS 151 



the trout to which he casts it. To lay down that he should 

 never cast without the certainty of killing would ensure 

 the extinction of chalk-stream trouting in a month. Now 

 to throw a dry fly to a bulging trout is to cast without 

 any reasonable hope of attracting the trout. I have done it 

 many times, and I ought to know. But to throw an ap- 

 propriate wet fly to a bulging trout is not to cast without 

 any reasonable hope of attracting the trout. I have done 

 it many times, and I ought to know. The former method 

 undoubtedly adds needlessly to the already too advanced 

 education of the trout. The other method involves giving 

 the subaqueous-feeding trout an opportunity of taking 

 the fly where he is engaged in taking his food, just as the 

 dry-fly method involves the giving to the surface-feeding 

 trout an opportunity of taking the fly where he is engaged 

 in taking his food. The exclusive dry-fly man is therefore 

 driven — and rightly driven — to deprecate casting the dry 

 fly to bulging trout, but he is not driven by any logic that 

 I have yet seen put forward to deprecate casting the wet fly 

 to subaqueous-feeding or even to surface-feeding trout. 



Not only are there hours and occasions when the wet fly 

 make a sounder appeal to the trout than does the dry fly, but 

 also places ; and more incidents than one strongly confirma- 

 tory of this proposition have occurred within my own experi- 

 ence. The first I quote was in this wise : On a mid- July day 

 I sat down by the Itchen to wait for the beginning of the 

 time of the take. I occupied my time of waiting by putting 

 a fine muslin net over the ring of my landing-net, and making 

 a few forages in the celery bed at my feet. The net came up 

 wriggling with nymphs of various colours and sizes. I 

 selected from my stock an imitation dressed with bear's hair 

 and olive seal' s fur, which, when wet, looked likest to one type 

 of nymph, and put it in my cap. There was no bulging in 

 the morning, and the few fish which rose fed on the surface. 



