SPECIAL CONDITIONS— WET-FLY SOLUTIONS 39 



mark by the need of contending against its swift- 

 ness, and the inducement to so contend is present 

 in the plentiful supply of food brought down by 

 the current. 



Such a glide do I know well, with some excellent 

 fish always showing there, but never breaking the 

 surface ; and for years I found them impregnable, 

 for the simple reason that, if one pitched a fly over 

 their noses, it was past them before they could 

 rise to it, and if one pitched it up enough to give 

 the fish a chance to take it they wouldn't, because 

 there was a prompt and streaky drag if the line 

 were, as it could hardly help being, the least Httle 

 bit across stream. Even the natural fly would 

 sail over them unmolested. 



But one day some years back, on a calm after- 

 noon in July, with not a trout rising, I was on the 

 Itchen, and I had crawled up some half-mile of 

 sedgy bank in search of a feeding fish without 

 finding one. But on the far side, in front of a 

 certain post, the remnant of a one-time fence, I 

 knew from experience that there was usually a 

 fish — at any rate at feeding-time. There was 

 nothing to suggest any particular dry fly, and 

 on the previous afternoon — a Sunday — I had spent 

 a pleasant twenty minutes watching a fish in 

 front of the stump taking something under water 

 with a sort of porpoise roll. It therefore occurred 

 to me to put up one of those Httle Greenwell's 

 Glories, dressed by Forrest of Kelso on pairs 



