4 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM 



gnats, and not a dun of any sort. The same was 

 the case with all the four brace more which I 

 secured in the next hour or so by precisely the 

 same methods. Yet each took the Dark Olive at 

 once when offered under water, while all day the 

 trout had been steadily refusing the recognized 

 floating lures recommended by the highest au- 

 thority. It was a lesson which ought to have set 

 me thinking and experimenting, but it didn't. 

 I put by the experience for use on the next 

 September smutting day, and I have never had 

 quite such another, so close, so sweltering, with 

 such store of smuts, and the trout taking them so 

 steadily and so freely. 



It was a September day two or three years later 

 when I had another hint as pointed and definite 

 as one could get from the hind-leg of a mule, but 

 I didn't take it. There was a cross-stream wind 

 from the west, with a favour of north in it, and 

 all the duns — and there were droves of them — 

 drifted in little fleets close hugging the east bank, 

 where the trout were lined up in force to deal with 

 them ; and they fed steadily. Fishing from the 

 west bank, I stuck to four fish which I satisfied 

 myself were good ones, and in over two hours' 

 fishing I never put them down. I tried over them 

 all my repertoire. I battered them with Dark 

 Olive Quill, Medium Ohve Quill, Gold-ribbed 

 Hare's Ear, Red Quill (two varieties). Grey Quill 

 and Blue Quill, Ogden's Fancy, and Wickham, and 



