4 TROUT FISHING 



that which is charged with No. 5 shot, 

 serves all the season round ; but the 

 sportsman on the lake or by the river 

 has many flies, each fly differing from the 

 others, and his success depends upon his 

 knowing the two or three which are 

 appropriate, in colour, in shape, and in 

 size, to the time of the year, and even to 

 the hour of the day. Then, though wilder 

 at some times than at others, winged 

 game are not by any weather put wholly 

 beyond one's reach ; but on a lake, or on a 

 slowly-running river, a dead calm puts 

 trout very nearly so, and if the calm is 

 that of the atmosphere before a thunder- 

 storm it is only by preternatural sagacity 

 that a fish can be made to rise. In 

 fine, any man who has a straight eye and 

 a steady hand can become a good shot ; 

 but the straight eye and the steady hand, 

 equally needed on the lake or by the 

 stream, are only, as it were, parts of the 

 mechanical equipment in the art of 

 angling. In order that they may be 

 made effective, eye and hand have to be 



