10 TROUT FISHING 



cold may have delayed the rise ; but if an 

 artificial fly chances to be of the proper 

 pattern, the trout will probably take it. 



This statement is founded on a memor- 

 able incident. A friend in London had 

 been promised three brace of trout before 

 breakfast -time next morning. The lake 

 on which they were to be caught had 

 recently been " fishing so well " that the 

 promise had been made with confidence. 

 It proved to have been rash. Three 

 hours of the afternoon passed without the 

 stirring of a fin. The flies had been 

 changed so often that the resources of the 

 tackle-book seemed exhausted. Indeed, 

 only one fly remained, a thing with a 

 khaki-coloured wing and next to nothing 

 on its body, surely an uninviting lure. 

 StUl, it might be tried ; and it was tried ; 

 and within two hours and a half the three 

 brace of trout, packed in heather, were 

 being sped southward by The Flying 

 Scotchman. The despised and nearly 

 rejected fly had raised fish after fish almost 

 as quickly as it could be disengaged and 



