FLY FISHING FOR TRGUT AND GRAYLING. 297 



ought to kill — whether they will do so, or be wasted as good 

 meat is by a bad cook, depends on the handling of my rod. I 

 have yet to throw over the fish, to hook him, and to play him 

 when hooked. I would say a word on each of these processes, 

 and do not despair of advancing under each head something 

 at once new and true. This would be scarcely possible had 

 writers qualified their general rules by drawing the requisite 

 distinctions. We are told, for instance, to throw a perfectly 

 straight line, that we may reach the farther and strike with the 

 greater certainty, and I admit the general principle. But on a 

 bright day and in a much-fished stream, such casting will not 

 serve your turn, unless you aim at reaching an individual fish. 

 Rather shake out your flies loosely, with a quivering motion of 

 the rod, and let your links of gut drop lightly, in irregular un- 

 dulations. The greenest trout, under such circumstances, takes 

 alarm at a * straight line ' drawn across the surface of the water. 

 Bear the same consideration in mind when working your flies 

 down and across the stream. 



Again, in throwing for a fish whose exact position you know, 

 all the books tell you to cast two or three feet above him, and 

 let the stream carry the fly down to the expectant trout — a 

 good rule doubtless, for the general guidance of a tyro, but for 

 the more advanced piscator, in sultry weather and bright shy 

 waters, in place of ' feet ' he may safely read ' inches.' It will 

 not do then to let an old trout scan and study the insect ap- 

 proaching him. Drop the fly ' reet ower his neb,' as a young 

 familiar of mine at Driffield used to phrase it, and ten to one, 

 having no space for reflection, he will ' take the death ' on the 

 impulse of the moment. 



Connected with the first dropping of the fly is the working 

 of it on and in the water. Drawing it straight along, especially 

 up stream, though common, is a ruinous error. In salmon 

 fishing this is well known : the hne is slackened at short 

 intervals between the sweeping movements of the fly across 

 and against the stream ; and the lure is made lifelike and 

 attractive by the alternate contraction and expansion of the 



