MAINLY TACTICAL 85 



among the flags under pressure of a stronger gust 

 than usual, and was lost to sight. Pitiably sparse 

 the fly were, and in half an hour not more than 

 half a dozen came in sight. All vanished dis- 

 appointingly among the flags. But at last the 

 watcher was rewarded by seeing one disappear in 

 the centre of a tiny widening ring, which scarcely 

 rippled out beyond the narrow glass edge. In a 

 moment distance was got by a trial cast a yard or 

 two downstream, and then the Red Quill dropped 

 perkily a foot above the spot where the dun had 

 disappeared, and went swiftly down on the 

 full current — so swiftly that the angler did not 

 realize until a second too late that the same neb 

 which had lain in wait for the dun had sucked in 

 the Red Quill. The strike was just too late, and 

 a pricked and badly scared trout dashed violently 

 out into the stream. 



In the next little bay another rising trout was 

 located, but the violence of the wind made it 

 necessary to cast too tight a line in order to drop 

 the fly in the glass edge, with the result that a 

 drag began to develop immediately, putting the 

 trout down. A few yards higher a clump of trees 

 made a sort of buffer of air, and the conditions 

 were a bit easier. Yet, though the sun came out 

 and showed the Red Quill gliding down the glass 

 edge, the rise of the next trout was such a delicately 

 neat movement that the angler was once again 

 almost taken unawares. Yet this time he fastened. 



