i68 THE DRY-FLY MAN'S HANDBOOK 



said, the conditions were very unfavourable and the- 

 evening rise was much less than usual. I do not con- 

 sider that the fly had a fair chance. But using it 

 either dry or just below the surface on one evening 

 when there was some little semblance of a rise I 

 succeeded in hooking five fish with it. Three were 

 landed, but they were small for Blagdon, the best not 

 being more than i|- lb. They were returned, and the 

 others, which were bigger fish, got off. A friend got 

 a good fish of over 2^ lb. the same evening with the 

 pattern, and another friend got one a little smaller with 

 a wickham fished dry. I cannot therefore do more than 

 record the genesis of the olive midge pattern. I trust 

 that ere long, however, it will prove its value fully." 



" For Blagdon, of course, fishing is divided into two 

 portions, big-fly and small-fly rather than wet-fly and 

 dry-fly, that is to say, there is, to my thinking, no very 

 hard and fast line to be drawn between small flies dry 

 and small flies wet so far as efficiency goes. Probably 

 either method will kill fish when the fish are in mood 

 to take flies at all. The small wet-fly has some slight 

 advantage over the dry-fly in the fact that much of 

 the trout's food consists of beetles, and is, of course, 

 subaqueous. Fishing with big or salmon flies pays 

 when the trout are bent on sticklebacks, or perhaps not 

 bent on anything in particular but ready to have 

 their appetites tickled by bright and tempting lures." 



" But in the whole course of my trout fishing I have 

 known nothing more fascinating and exciting than the 

 two or three good evening rises which I have expe- 



