TROUT INSECTS FOR MAY 



both fly and bait with equal vim, and are plump and 

 in splendid condition when the season opens. This 

 establishes a fact, I think : that the brown trout does 

 little or no feeding during the winter, and that the 

 brook or speckled trout feed at all seasons. I have 

 opened many a well-conditioned native trout early 

 in the season, to find that their stomachs contain 

 very little food — ^mostly small creepers from the 

 river bed, a mixed mass, black in color, showing 

 they devoured both creeper and case. Our native 

 trout, I think, does not begin to eat fish food till it 

 attains a fair growth of about ten inches in length, 

 whereas the brown trout takes very small fish as 

 food when only five inches long, or about a year 

 old; they wiU take artificial flies before that. 



Many of the insects captured in the first few 

 days of May were the same that I observed late in 

 April. A fairly good rise of yellow sallies ap- 

 peared the third day; and the brown drake came 

 out in increasing numbers. The large green drake 

 did not appear till the 18th. Every day the shad- 

 fly became more numerous; so, too, the cowdung 

 and the bluebottle were quite plentiful. 



No. 1. Chreen drake. This is the largest (ex- 

 cept the big stone-fly) , though not the most beauti- 

 ful, aquatic insect that trout feed upon. Its long, 

 fat body proves a very alluring bait. Indeed, it 

 is so good that even very poor imitations are greed- 

 ily taken by large and small trout during the entire 



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