June 15, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
937 . 
Dry-Fly Fishing in England. 
The following notes on dry-fly fishing were 
written by Mr. Alfred Herbert, of Kenilworth, 
England, in a letter to his friend, Mr. P. E. 
Montanus, of Springfield, Mass., whose permis¬ 
sion we have obtained to publish them: 
“The method of fishing with the dry fly, as 
practiced on our clear limestone and chalk 
streams, may perhaps be a little new to you. 
In this style of fishing we invariably fish up 
stream, and in our clear waters here we are 
able to see the trout distinctly. The angler 
looks out for a fish which is actually rising 
and feeding on the natural floating insect. This 
of course only happens when there is a rise 
of flies on the water. On some days there 
will be very little, if any, rise of insects, and 
consequently very few fish to be caught; at 
other times, in favorable weather, rises may 
be more or less continuous during the dav, 
but the best part of the rise usually con¬ 
centrates itself into short periods, the best 
time being generally between 11 and 3 o’clock- 
in the spring, while later in the year there is 
often a good evening rise after sundown, if the 
weather is warm and the atmosphere free from 
mist. 
“When a feeding fish is seen, the angler’s ob¬ 
ject is to get as near to him from below as 
possible without scaring the fish. This neces¬ 
sitates a good deal of progression after the 
manner of the serpent, it being essential above 
all things to keep low. The fly chosen should 
be as near as possible a reproduction of the 
actual insect on the water. The line, which 
is of plaited silk, dressed in linseed oil under 
the air pump, is carefully greased, preferably 
with red deer fat, but vaseline or hard mutton 
suet answers equally well. The object of greas¬ 
ing the line is to insure that it shall float light¬ 
ly on the surface of the water. If not greased 
—no matter how well it may be dressed—it 
soon tends to be waterlogged, and in this con¬ 
dition sinks below the surface of the water 
when drawn in, dragging the fly with it under 
the water, and thus soaking the latter. The 
line we use here is generally fairly heavy, and 
preferably tapers to a fine point. The gut we 
use is from two to three yards in length, fairly 
stout where it joins the line, but tapering to 
quite a fine point. Only one fly is used in this 
style of fishing. The fly itself is lightly touched 
with a spot of odorless paraffin from the small 
bottle which is carried on one’s waistcoat but¬ 
ton. After anointing the fly with paraffin, I 
find it well to absorbe the excess paraffin on a 
dry handkerchief; then by making a few false 
casts in the air, the fly is further dried, and 
nothing but a minute suspicion of paraffin re¬ 
mains^ on the fly, otherwise any excess of the 
paraffin forms a film on the water, which is 
distinctly and detrimentally visible to the fish. 
< “Having now got within easy range of the 
rising fish, the angler’s object is to drop the 
fly about two or three feet above him, so that 
it shall come down in a natural position, with 
its wings erect (or ‘cocked,’ as we call it). It 
should fall on the water quite lightly, and the 
least splash of the line is fatal, the fish in these 
waters apparently having eyes all over as well 
as in their heads. It is important that the fly 
should travel at precisely the same pace as 
other natural flies which are floating freely on 
the water, otherwise a ripple or drag is set 
up, and our fish will not look at a fly which 
has the slightest suspicion of drag. Drag is 
very difficult to overcome under some con¬ 
ditions; it is caused by the stream running 
faster in some parts than in others; for in- 
i stance, if one is casting across a river, and 
1 the water in the center is running faster than 
at the side on which the fly falls, the pull of 
the current on the line tends to drag the fly 
faster than the water around it, and this sets 
up ‘positive drag.’ If, on the other hand, 
owing to the conformation of the stream, the 
water is running more rapidly at the side 
where the fly falls than it is in the center where 
the line falls, then the line will hold back the 
fly and set up drag of another kind—‘negative 
drag.’ 
“If all these various difficulties are success¬ 
fully overcome, and if the fly happens to ap¬ 
peal to the fish as a suitable morsel, it is taken, 
often with a great show of confidence. The 
subsequent proceedings are exciting, but are of 
course quite familiar to you. The difficulty 
of 1 anding the fish in our waters is greatly in¬ 
creased by the prevalence of weed beds. These 
we cut to some extent in May. It is wise, 
however, to leave large masses of weed un¬ 
touched, as it is in the weeds that the larvae 
of the water-fly live and feed; and further, 
the weeds are used by the fish as shelters, and 
we find that fish in the neighborhood of weeds 
feel much more happy and feed much more 
boldly than in a bare stream. 
“Our great fishing season in the south coun¬ 
try streams is the first week in June, when we 
get a rise of a fly called the May-fly or green 
drake. This is much larger in size than any 
other of our natural flies. When it first 
hatches, the fish are very shy of it; but after 
some days they acquire confidence and feed 
on it, in some cases with voracity. The 
hackle fly, or wingless pattern, is a very curi¬ 
ous production; but my own experience goes 
to show that this is the most killing form. 
We spread out the hackles of this fly, slightly 
oil them, and get them thoroughly dry. It 
then floats with the lightness of thistle-down. 
“The wing patterns of the May-fly are pre¬ 
ferred by some anglers, but in my own ex¬ 
perience they have two drawbacks : The first 
is that it is difficult to insure that they shall 
always float in the proper position; that is, 
with the wings erect; and in the second place, 
the action of casting through the air very fre¬ 
quently causes them to spin, which tangles up 
the gut. The hackle fly possesses the great 
advantage that it can, under certain conditions, 
be fished wet. Under some conditions the fish 
do not appear to take this particular fly on 
the top of the water, but rather take the pupa 
just as it rises to the surface and bursts; when 
the fish feed in this way we call it ‘bulging,’ 
and under these conditions they will take the 
hackle fly fished wet under water. 
“I do not know whether dry-fly fishing can 
be followed with success on your waters. The 
conditions that are most favorable to dry-fly 
fishing are, first of all, that the surface of the 
water should be smooth enough to enable the 
fly to float, and to enable the angler to see it; 
secondly, that the fish should be actually feed¬ 
ing, obviously on some floating insect. Under 
these conditions, I believe the dry fly will kill 
fish on any river; but of course in rapid 
streams, where the surface is broken up by 
rocks and the current is strong, the conditions 
are undoubtedly entirely against the dry-fly 
fisherman. I imagine, however, from the 
charming photographs you have sent me of 
Cliff Lake, the water of which appears to be 
quite smooth, particularly around the margins, 
that there will be times in the day when you 
can see the fish rising and feeding at the top 
of the water. When this takes place is the 
time to try the dry fly, and if you meet with 
any success, I believe you will find that this 
style of fishing possesses a charm which is 
absent from the ordinary style of wet-fly 
fishing downstream. The great attraction of 
dry-fly fishing is the actual seeing of the in¬ 
dividual fish, the stalking for him, and his ulti¬ 
mate capture; in fact, you see the whole per¬ 
formance, and fish consciously for one in¬ 
dividual trout, whereas in the wet fly system 
(which of course is also largely used in Eng¬ 
land) one casts simply into a likely piece of 
water and hopes for the best. 
"So far, I have had no trout fishing this 
year. Although the season commences on 
April 1, the weather conditions this spring 
have been exceedingly bad. We have had 
practically no rain this month (April), which 
means that the streams are low and very clear, 
and the bitter winds we have had from the 
northwest have also been most unfavorable 
to fishing; so that up to now I have done 
nothing. Moreover, my time has been rather 
taken up otherwise. I am hoping, as soon as 
we can get a change of weather, to have two 
or three days’ fishing, though we do not ex¬ 
pect to do very well before the end of May or 
beginning of June. 
“I hope the flies I am sending will reach 
you safely, and should be very interested to 
hear if you find any of them kill on your own 
streams. It may be that your native flies differ 
altogether from ours, and if that is so pos¬ 
sibly you will find the flies not of much use. 
If, however, you could capture a few of the 
actual floating insects on which you see the 
fish feeding, and send them to me in small 
glass bottles of spirits, I would undertake to 
have you a few floating flies dressed to rep¬ 
resent them accurately, and this I think wpuld 
enable you to try the dry-fly style of fishing 
with the best chance of success.” 
New England Trout. 
Edgewater. N. J., June 8.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: When I arrived home one day last 
week and pulled a through ticket from my vest, 
showing same to my wife, she remarked: “Well, 
yon are going, after all!” 
Yes, I was going, did go, and am returned 
from a three days’ trip to the land of rolling 
ground and speeding brooks—New England. 
Bifly met me at the station with a horse and 
new “Concord” and we made our way to the old 
farm, a mile out of a pretty little village. Bill 
is one of the few persons bred and raised in the 
country who really sees the beauties of his en¬ 
vironment. His remark to me: “I do love to 
wade a brook,” so lucidly explains one superi¬ 
ority of brook fishing over other angling that 
it is worth recording. 
Now, the thing that caused me to so suddenly 
buy my railroad ticket was a letter from him. 
calculated to shock the nerves of any unfortu¬ 
nate “chained to business” in prosaic Man¬ 
hattan. The gist was that “Fitz” had come 
home with twelve fish weighing ten pounds, an¬ 
other man with three fish weighing six. and one 
with a record fish of three pounds. When my 
spouse handed me' these facts from a reliable 
source, I decided at once to go. 
Uncle Jim’s farmhouse reminds one of Irving’s 
description of the old Dutch housewives—so 
clean the floors, that one hesitates to desecrate 
them; so sweet the bed sheets, one thinks 
seriously of retiring to sleep upon the rug. 
New milk, fresh eggs, homemade rhubarb pie— 
ah! why continue this epic? It must suffice 
you, brother angler, to know that I slept like 
a little child between the whitest sheets, among 
the most wholesomely hospitable people known. 
And what real hospitality—the largest and best 
furnished chamber is reserved for the transient 
guest, whom everybody bustles to please. 
The following morning was cool and clear. 
Breakfast over, into the “Concord” and away 
with Uncle Jim to that pool under the dam, 
where he lost “that big un!” Through the thick 
