THE ETHICS OF THE DRY-FLY 67 



perience I have never seen the winged insects sub- 

 merged by the action of the stream. Sedges do at 

 times descend to oviposit and so do certain spinners, 

 but their appearance under this condition with an air 

 bubble between their wings resembles nothing so 

 much as a globule of mercury — an appearance which 

 bears no resemblance to the ordinary sunk fly 

 patterns. 



When fishing dry, the angler must in the first 



instance find a fish taking the 

 Method of fishing winged insects on the surface, 



dry-fly. and it is essential that he 



should locate its position with 

 the greatest precision. This is technically called 

 spotting the rise. If he should perchance catch sight 

 of a fish near the surface which is evidently on the 

 look out for duns or other flies but not actually rising, 

 he may cast to this fish. His chance of success is 

 in no case very good, and on club or subscription 

 waters, which are usually very much overfished, he 

 is far more likely to scare the fish than to induce it 

 to rise at his fly. 



The artificial fly having been placed on the water 

 lightly and accurately so that it will float down over 

 the exact spot where the fish is feeding, the next 

 essential is that it should follow precisely the same 

 course and travel at precisely the same pace as the 

 natural insects under similar conditions. This branch 

 of the subject to be treated in a subsequent chapter 

 entitled "^Drag." 



