SPECIAL CONDITIONS— WET-FLY SOLUTIONS 47 



you to one cast — viz., that directly upstream. 

 But there are times when it is well to accept 

 the limitation. 



OF GENERALSHIP AND THE WET FLY. 



There is a bend on Itchen where the water runs 

 deep and black. Over the best of it hang three 

 large trees, under which, if trout be rising any- 

 where on the river, they will be found pegging 

 away, and often when they are moving nowhere 

 else. The place is near the spot where anglers 

 foregather for lunch and a pull at pipe or flask ; 

 so the fish under these trees are hammered more 

 than a little, and their knowledge is in direct pro- 

 portion to their experience. Here, too, anglers 

 usually take apart their split canes in the evening, 

 and, ere they do so, have one last chuck in the 

 dusk with Sedge, Coachman, or large Red Quill at 

 one or all of these rising trout, but it is the rarest 

 thing for one to be caught. I have caught six of 

 them in fifteen years. Perhaps it is because to 

 cover them one must fish straight across from the 

 opposite bank — no other attack is possible — and 

 they can hardly fail to see rod and angler. 



But it fell about in the year of grace 1909 that 

 my lawful occasions took me along the right bank, 

 on which the trees grew, past the haunt of these 

 aggravating risers, and I took the occasion to 

 observe. None of them were moving at the time, 

 and the water was lower by some inches than the 



