170 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



and down to him as quickly as I could. I was afraid the 

 rise might be over, but he was still taking at intervals 

 sufficiently close to enable me to cover him precisely 

 enough, and he had the Orange Quill at the first offer. 

 At first I thought I had misjudged his weight, his move- 

 ments were so slow, but presently he became scared and 

 showed his mettle, and during the latter stages of the 

 battle he was half out of the water, and lashing the surface 

 and churning it into foam. But the little nine-footer guided 

 him to the net, and he lay on the bank in the moonlight, 

 a perfect picture of what a chalk-stream trout should be — 

 deep, solid, short, and thick, in the pink of condition, 

 three pounds two ounces. 



I have given these three evening experiences just as 

 illustrations of the varying ways in which trout must be 

 approached under differing conditions, even when rising 

 at the same fly. It is often very difficult to judge which 

 is the right or best course to adopt, and much valuable 

 time may be lost by an error in judgment. 



It may be asked why the Orange Quill is taken at night 

 for the blue- winged olive. I answer frankly, I don't know. 

 I only know that it is. I discovered it by accident in the 

 early nineties, and it was a lucky accident, for it has been 

 worth many a good fish to me. In one season I remember 

 five successive Saturday evenings in June and July, each 

 of which yielded three and a half brace to the Orange Quill. 

 That experience led me astray at first, and I had some 

 disappointments before I worked back to the full apprecia- 

 tion of the fact that blue-winged olive fishing has three 

 phases — nymph, subimago, and spinner. 



To fish the nymph at night is even more fascinating than 

 to do so by day. In order to divine the rise and the right 

 moment to strike it is essential to choose a stretch where 

 you look up into the light under your own bank. Then, 



