240 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



sor's example in yielding to the clinging affections of the 

 meadowsweet. Then I tried a Red Quill, and after he had 

 been rejected, I left him and more of my gut in one of the 

 trailing brambles. Followed a home-made hackled Red 

 spinner, tied with a priceless honey-dun cock's hackle, a 

 Whirling Blue dun, and two Orange Quills on No. I hooks. 

 There were two of these, because the first was hung up 

 before I got him over my trout. There were fully two yards 

 of gut left when the first Orange Quill left me, there was but 

 one yard when I was orphaned of the second. Then I 

 bethought me of the scuttering sedge, and I put on a 

 good big wholesome Red Sedge, with an orange silk body on 

 a No. 4 hook. All the time the trout had continued at 

 intervals to take some fly or other, whose nature was not 

 revealed to me, with a sullen, consequential " ploop," 

 occasionally displaying his back fin and the extreme tip of 

 his tail as he went down. All this time he had never been 

 scared. The Sedge went over him beautifully (I had no 

 nerves about my casting, having not the least hope or 

 expectation of getting my fish), there was a little hump 

 under the surface, and then the Sedge floated on undis- 

 turbed. So was the Recording Angel. Once I recovered the 

 fly, and again put it before my fish. No notice taken, but 

 when I tried to recover the Sedge again there was passive 

 resistance, and I lost not only the remaining yard of gut, 

 but the loop of my casting line. 



I put a new cast into my damper to soak, emerged from 

 my bramble-bush, sat down, frayed out the end of my 

 casting line, waxed it, waxed a doubled length of silk, and 

 whipped a new loop in the end. Then I put on my freshly 

 damped cast, and as I glanced over the fly-box, looking 

 up by chance, I saw a willow fly on the elbow of my 

 mackintosh. Now I pride myself on my Willow Flies. I 

 tie a spent Willow Fly which has a most life-like way of 



