32 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM 



winged Olive. There was a hatch of this per- 

 nicious insect one afternoon. The floating pattern 

 is always a failure with me, and in anticipation I 

 had tied some nymphs of appropriate colour of 

 body, and hackled with a single turn of the tiniest 

 blue hackle of the merlin. It enabled me to get 

 two or three excellent trout which were taking 

 blue-winged olive nymphs greedily under the 

 opposite bank, and which, or rather the first of 

 which, like their predecessors, had refused to 

 respond to a floating imitation. The body was a 

 mixture of medium olive seal's fur and bear's 

 hair close to the skin, tied with primrose silk, the 

 whisk being short and soft, from the spade-shaped 

 feather found on the shoulder of a blue dun cock. 



Another pattern, successful in the last two 

 months of the season, is dressed with a very short 

 palish-blue dun or honey dun hen's hackle, a body 

 of hare's poll tied on pale primrose silk, with or 

 without a small gold tag and palest ginger whisks. 

 But it is evident that on this subject I am only 

 at the beginning of inquiry. Of course there is 

 nothing very new in the idea of imitating nymphs. 

 The half stone is just a nymph generally ruined 

 by over-hackling. 



In July, 1908, I caught an Itchen fish one after- 

 noon, and on examining his mouth I found a dark 

 olive nymph. My fly -dressing materials were 

 with me, and I found I had a seal's fur which, 

 with a small admixture of bear's hair, dark 



