12 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM 



fly, but an imitation of a nymph or a broken or 

 submerged fly is a far stronger temptation. This 

 is the third stage. 



Now, the dry-fly purist is quite entitled to his 

 own opinions, and to restrict himself to the second 

 stage ; but if there be other anglers who are wilhng 

 to vary their methods, who can and do catch 

 their trout, not only in the second stage, but also 

 in the first and the third, and if their methods 

 spoil no sport for others, who shall say that they 

 are wrong in availing themselves of all three stages 

 of a rise of duns ? 



I remember well one day late in May when the 

 three stages were excellently well marked. There 

 was a bright sun, a hght breeze from the east with 

 a touch of south in it, and I was on the water 

 about 9.30, and took the left bank, with the wind 

 behind my hand. No fish were rising, but on 

 reaching the water-side I almost stumbled on top 

 of a trout which stood poised over a clear gravel 

 patch under my own bank. Fortunately, how- 

 ever, I withdrew without his seeing or suspecting 

 me. My pale dressed Greenwell's Glory trailed in 

 the water, and I dehvered it without flick well wet 

 a foot or so above the spot where I had marked 

 my fish. There was no break of the surface, but 

 a sort of smooth shallow hump of the water about 

 the size of a dinner-plate, with a dip in the middle, 

 as the fish turned and I pulled into him. Pres- 

 ently I saw a brace bulging vigorously over some 



