FLIES AND FLY-DRESSING 208 



trout should be once more " fished over," 

 so we took the fly still on the cast and 

 forcibly manipulated it, tying down the 

 wings flat, and clipping away all loose 

 hackle along the back. From the bridge 

 I watched my friend as he crept beside 

 the bushes and out on to a little spit of 

 gravel, well below the fish. It was a long 

 and difficult cast this, up and across 

 stream, but it was accomplished perfectly. 

 The paid line lengthened with each swish 

 of the rod, and then shot out straight over 

 the water, the fly falling beautifully a 

 yard above the fish. He came at it with 

 a rush. For an instant I saw the gleam 

 of his great shoulders, and as he dived 

 that stupendous tail. At once he made 

 up-stream, tearing twenty yards of line 

 noisily off* the reel, and as he came the 

 taut cast sang through the ripple. At 

 the bridge he leapt under my very nose, 

 then bored for deep water and a rusted 

 iron grating. The line sawed and sagged 

 ominously, then suddenly relaxed, a limp 

 thing coiling aimlessly in the current. I 

 recall my first silent sympathy, and time 

 has dulled our subsequent orations ; to-day 



