HOW TO FISH m m A VMM/ i i i W- EARL -HODGSON JJ-L-.. -fTi:_:^-~'~_J THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES HOW TO FISH BY THE SAME AUTHOR Large Crmun 8fo. Cloth. Gilt top. PRICE 7s. 6d. NET EACH TROUT FISHING WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY H. L. ROLFE AND A FACSIMILE IN COLOURS OF A MODEL BOOK OF FLIES, FOR STREAM AND LAKE, ARRANGED ACCORDING TO THE MONTHS IN WHICH THE LURES ARE APPROPRIATE. SALMON FISHING WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY JOSEPH FARgUHAR- SON, A.R.A., A FACSIMILE IN COLOURS OF A MODEL SET OF FLIES FOR SCOTLAND, IRELAND, ENGLAND AND WALES, ILLUSTRATIONS OF ANGLING SCENES CHARACTERISTIC OF THESE PARTS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM, AND PIC- TURES OF SALMON PASSES. AGENTS AMERICA . THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CANADA . THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OK CANADA, LTD. 27 RICHMOND STREET WEST, TORONTO INDIA . . MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD. MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY 309 Bow BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA HOW TO FISH A TREATISE ON TROUT & TROUT-FISHERS BY W. EARL HODGSON AUTHOR OF ' TROUT FISHING ' AND ' SALMON FISHING WITH EIGHT FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND EIGHTEEN SMALLER ENGRAVINGS IN THE TEXT LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1907 PREFATORY NOTE MR. ADAM BLACK, whom I met in the High- lands last August, then told me that " Trout Fishing " left a widespread want unsatisfied. In all parts of the country the travelling representative of his firm, Mr. Cannon, found that the book, though generously received when first published, in 1904, and still in demand, met the case of those only who already knew a good deal about the subject. There ivas he himself, Mr. Black, on his way to Loch Tay, to try for a trout: the book had not taught him all he needed to know ! An exhaustive treatise was required; and it should be ready for issue in Spring. This was a shocking speech; but gradually, as I thought it over, wrath dissolved before a perception that it was not unreasonable. Any one who discourses on a subject with Vll viii HOW TO FISH which he is familiar was certainly apt, I realised, to assume that the prospective readers knew much more than they did know. That oversight, apparently, played its negative part in " Trout Fishing." Yes : I would write the exhaustive treatise. Here it is. A few theories which I have had the honour of stating in articles contributed to periodicals, including " The Times," " The Nineteenth Century," " The National Re- view," and " The Monthly Review" are, with permissions, presented in it; but, of course, they are presented in fresh words, in their natural relations, and modified by such criticisms as were unmistakably true. The sum-total of the theories mentioned is a very small part of the volume, which I have sought to make completely comprehensive. Next time the Publisher returns from trout- fishing with his spirits less light than his creel, he will have himself, not me, to blame. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAOK THE TROUT CHAPTER II THE ROD . - 25 CHAPTER III FITTINGS OF THE ROD . 4>9 CHAPTER IV ON THE WAY TO THE STREAM . 73 CHAPTER V THE CAST OF FLIES . 87 CHAPTER VI FLY-FISHING ON A STREAM . .115 CHAPTER VII To THE LAKE, AND BACK . .139 ix x HOW TO FISH CHAPTER VIII PAGE DRY FLY 156 CHAPTER IX INFLUENCES OF THE WEATHER . . . .174 CHAPTER X A THEORY IN EXPLANATION .... 200 CHAPTER XI FLIES . ... . 220 CHAPTER XII ETIQUETTE OF THE SPORT ..... 274 CHAPTER XIII LURES THAT SINK ...... 290 CHAPTER XIV WASPS. . ... .319 CHAPTER XV IMPROVING THE WATERS . . . 346 INDEX 373 ILLUSTRATIONS PRINTED SEPARATELY FROM THE TEXT WHAT SOMETIMES HAPPENS . . . Frontispiece FACING PAGE A HIGHLAND LOCH . . . . . .140 AN ANXIOUS MOMENT . . . . . .178 EYED FLIES FOR THE STREAM . . '220 EYED FLIES FOR THE LAKE . . 240 WHERE A MINNOW WOULD DO NO HARM . . 300 ON A MOUNTAIN STREAM : A GOOD POOL . . 362 ON A MOUNTAIN STREAM : A SHALLOW STRETCH . 366 PRINTED IN THE TEXT PA.QE THE LOCKFAST JOINT . . . .27 THE SPIRAL JOINT ...... 29 THE LLOYD TREBLE-GRIP JOINT . . . .31 GREENHEART ROD AND BUILT-CANE ROD UNDER TEST 47 AN AUTOMATIC-CHECK REEL . . . .51 WATER KNOT, SINGLE .... .62 xi xii HOW TO FISH PAGE WATER KNOT, DOUBLE ..... 62 FISHERMAN'S KNOT, SINGLE ..... 63 FISHERMAN'S KNOT, DOUBLE . ... 63 A DROPPER ATTACHMENT ..... 65 ATTACHING AN EYED-FLY . ... 66 FAMILIAR ON LOCHLEVEN . . . . .91 A CAST OF FLIES IN GRADED SIZES . . .94 RIVER FLIES . . . . . .117 LAKE FLIES .... . 141 A CAST OF MIDGES .... .154 MINNOW FLIGHTS ...... 295 STEWART TACKLE ... . 309 HOW TO FISH CHAPTER I THE TROUT Early in the Year Where are they ? From South to North A Yorkshire Belief Another Surmise A Well-in- formed Gipsy Fish that are " in condition " all the Year The Pools become Alive Gregarious Habits Daily Movements In Gentle Flood Mysterious Disappear- ance Eddies Slack Water A Singular Pool Strange Uniformity of Size In Indian File "Rising Short" The Explanation In Raging Flood. IN the South of England, as White of Selborne noticed, trout "begin to rise 1 ' shortly after the middle of March. This implies that they have returned to the places in which they were during the summer before. In autumn, when running up the waters to the spawning-grounds, they would take worms greedily, if these were offered, and would even rise at flies, real or artificial ; but, as any honest poacher could vouch, they do not rise freely at flies, 2 HOW TO FISH or bite eagerly at more substantial baits, when on the way back to the places which they occupy in spring and summer. Indeed, their habits for four or five months after spawning are mysterious. Even in Hampshire, the streams of which are not so large as to render a pretty exhaustive search impossible, any person not highly skilled in the lore of the naturalist would be puzzled if he went forth to catch a few before the middle of March. He might cast his flies in vain over some attractive stretch on which early in summer he was wont to make heavy baskets. Then, if he had curiosity, he might peer into the water to see whether the fish were there, and find that they were not. He would almost be disposed to conclude that the trout had quitted the stream. If that evening, or next day, he went to study the problem by the banks of one of the great running waters in Scotland, the mystery would deepen. During the whole of March there seems to be scarcely a trout in such a river as the Dee or the Tay. The persevering salmon-fisher sees a rising trout only now and then ; neither with a fly nor with a minnow does the trout-fisher meet with a success worth mentioning. There is no sign of trout in some places where they were plentiful six months before. They have long left the spawning- grounds, and they do not seem to be anywhere else. THE TROUT 3 Where are they ? One might be tempted to suspect that they must be hibernating in the mud. A Yorkshireman, at any rate, might make that conjecture readily. In his part of the country a great wonder is sometimes witnessed. There is a long drought, and the becks cease to run, and it may be supposed that all the trout have perished ; but the rains descend, and the floods come, and lo, the trout are back and as blithe as ever. A similar marvel has been noted in Hert- fordshire. It is supposed, by way of explanation, that trout are able to remain alive in fluid mud. That, however, is not the solution I would pro- pose. It is not in the mud that the trout, either of the Test or of the Tay, hide until March is nearly over. They are, I think, resting at the bottom of the river in places where the water is deep and slow. This surmise springs less from experience than from analogy. Both in Hampshire and in the Highlands, during March, I have fished in such pools, as well as in shallow waters, and that in vain ; but any one who seeks the March trout in a lake, instead of seeking him in a stream, will have a different requital. All along the north shore, where the sun is warming the lake, the fish will rush at his flies. Before the enactment of a close- time, a few years ago, many a basket of trout was taken from the Scotch lakes in 4 HOW TO FISH February, and the capture of fish in January was not unknown. Perhaps our analogy will commend itself. Lake trout return to the still water very soon after spawning, in the streams. It is reasonable, therefore, to suppose that river trout, most of which spawn in tributaries, seek, on returning, those parts of the river in which the process of recuperation is least arduous. The fact that the river trout do not rise, while the lake trout do, is not against this suggestion. The water near the shore of a lake is shallow as a rule, and the fish there are quick to see a fly thrown over them ; but the pools in which the river trout take refuge are the deepest they can find, and the fly may well pass unnoticed. Why, then, it may be asked, does any poacher seek them earlier in the year than the law allows ? If trout are not to be caught, why does such a practical person go forth to try for them ? Why, indeed, does the writer himself, not yet convicted of having poached, show a certain intimacy with the ways of trout at a time when they are not to be caught ? These are cogent queries. The last of them may be settled by the remark that, although many trout are not to be expected from a large river in March, the law does not forbid angling then. The others must be answered reflectively. Flowing into the North Sea on the coast of THE TROUT 5 Scotland there is a fine trout-stream on which the burgesses of a county town have, by an ancient statute, the privilege of angling. When there was no close -time this right was exercised liberally. Many of the beneficiaries fished not only through spring and summer but also through autumn and winter. The burgesses seemed to include school- boys, some of whom spent Saturdays and other holidays by the waterside. There, late in November, I met a familiar figure. It was that of an ancient gipsy who haunted the stream night and day. It was believed that he made his livelihood by selling trout to a fishmonger in a large town not far off, the inhabitants of which, not being more learned in the ways of Nature than most people are, took it for granted that, if not stale, any fish were good to eat. The gipsy was an approachable man ; and, having heard my elders and betters say that it was a shame to fish after September, and that the stream was being ruined, I ventured a shy remonstrance in the considerate form of a request for knowledge. Was it really true that trout were not all right at that time of the year ? " Most of them are not," the gipsy answered ; " but some of them are. In this water, all winter, there are aye trout of a kind that don't spawn. Not very many o' them ; but they're here, and they're just as good at Christmas 6 HOW TO FISH as at Whitsunday." The old man's quiet words and thoughtful black eyes seemed to be charged with generations of weird wisdom. They set me think- ing; and, perhaps to justify dissent from the doctrine of the elders, whose pragmatical con- servatism was distasteful, mentally I framed a pro- position. "It is wrong to catch trout that are spawning or about to spawn. All trout in that state are in the tributaries. Therefore, it cannot be wrong to fish in the main stream at this time, because the trout in that state are not there." Here, for the moment, the reasoning stopped. It did not reach the corollary that if the gipsy caught any trout they must be trout that were not in the usual run and therefore not out of condition. Perhaps that was because, as he had none in his basket and was not getting a bite, I may not really have believed his legend of the strange fish. Since then the youthful logic has been justified as regards the brief period during which the general run of trout are away from the main streams, spawning. Towards the close of March 1904 I caught two trout. One weighed 1 Ib. 3 oz. ; the other, f Ib. A lady had used the landing-net, and, of course, I left the fish at her house. Next day she told me that roe had been found in both of them, and that she had kept it in a phial of spirits. Roe in trout at THE TROUT 7 that time of the year ! I went to see. The eggs were small ; but they were unmistakable. If the fish had been rainbows, which spawn five or six months later than the British trout, there would have been less cause for astonishment; but they were undoubtedly brown-trout. The matter seemed to demand an explanation from The Field. Fearing that if I myself made inquiry I might display ignorance, I persuaded the lady to write a letter, and to despatch it, together with the phial, to the Editor. What was the meaning of brown-trout with roe in March ? The authoritative answer ran : "It is uncommon, but not unknown. One theory is that there are trout which spawn biennially." We had actually, on an afternoon, caught two of the peculiar trout which years before, with the omniscience of old age at thirteen, I had dismissed from mind as being a gipsy superstition ! Soon after March the basket begins to contain, as a daily matter of course, trout of the ordinary kind. One day there will be a brace ; the next, a brace and a half; one fish, or none, a day or two later; and suddenly as many as the creel can hold. Resembling most of the processes of Nature, the return of the trout to the quarters of spring and summer is gradual. The fish appear in the pools as if they were ghosts of themselves, stealthily, singly ; but at length the pools 8 HOW TO FISH are alive with them, just as the woodlands are filled with the notes of the wandering cuckoo, which has come not in flocks but in solitude. Nature is at once individualistic and social. Her social tendencies in a trout-stream are manifest in the gregariousness of the fish. Trout, it is true, do not move from place to place, as char constantly do, in shoals, which are here to-day and may be far away to-morrow ; but within a narrower range they show what seems to be a liking for the company of their own kind. Apart from waters that have very few, it is unusual to see a solitary trout. Where one is, in a well-stocked stream, you will, as a rule, find many, and a stretch of water that is deserted by most will soon be deserted by all. It may be suggested that in either case the cause is some influence acting on the trout singly. Here, for example, food may be abundant, or the water flowing at a pleasant pace ; while there food may be sparse, or the flow uncomfortable. May not that explain peculiarities in the distribution of the trout ? It may ; but I do not think it does. Sometimes, though not often, trout quit a place, long a favourite haunt, which has not undergone any discoverable change ; sometimes, also, they surprise you in a reach where for many seasons not one was to be found. This variableness is rare in small streams, where, if the stock be large, space is insufficient ; but THE TROUT 9 it is common where there is no danger of over- crowding. On a great river, indeed, every observant fisherman must have found cause for believing that in certain respects our understanding of the ways of trout is far from being complete. One stretch, as far as he can tell, is without a fish, while the next has many ; and, judging in the light of what he took to be knowledge gained on humbler waters, he perceives the one phenomenon to be as puzzling as the other. It is certain, however, that trout are gregarious. Their habit in this respect, which may be due either to sociality or to stress of circumstances imperfectly real- ised by us, will, oddly, be more manifest when we come to observe, as we shall soon, their individualistic ways. At present it is to be noted that when trout have taken up their positions for the season they do not wander far. It is possible to define their movements with rough accuracy. Sometimes you come upon a pool which is gradually shallowing towards the lower end, and then issues, perhaps by a narrow channel, into rough rapids. Over all that region there is a regular movement of trout during each twenty-four hours within the season of their highest vigour. In the broad light of day there will be some in the deep parts of the pool, some in the rapids, few or none in the shallows between. At nightfall and until after dawn it is on the shallows that the angler's best 10 HOW TO FISH chance lies. Some fish have crept into them from beloWj and others have dropped into them from above. In places where there is no resort of the kind described some of the trout, in the dusk, tend to come into bays or shallows by the side of the stream ; and the angler, beginning an all-night effort at midsummer, or not long before or after, may, at such a place, find a fly seized when he is only putting out the line. Trout in a lake have a similar habit. Not all of them take to the shallows or the bays at nightfall ; but many of them do. Such, I think, are the regular daily movements of trout, throughout the period of their highest lustiness, in fine weather. They tend to be in the deeps or the rapids, if there be such places near, by day, and to be in the shallows or the bays at night. In time of flood they are stirred to farther travel. Some, it is true, seek shelter, or a feast, not far from their regular hovers, and often a good fish is to be caught in the lee of anything abutting at the bank, even if it be only a clump of reeds, or over a gravel mound on which you stood dry-shod the day before ; but many run upstream until they find a place where the whole water is shallow, and stay there until the flood is nearly spent. At such a time the wise fisher- man will give a chance to places over which he does not think of casting when the stream is at summer THE TROUT 11 level. A stretch such as that is pleasantly in mind. It is a smooth, broad shallow on one of our great rivers. The bottom being of pebbles and bright sand, everything considerable in it can be seen from the banks. It has small fish, many of them parrs ; but it has not any trout worth taking. At ordinary times it is one of the reaches which are mysteriously shunned. Nevertheless, during each flood in the summer of 1906 it yielded heavier baskets than any stretch for two miles above it or below. When the river fell to the usual level all the large trout un- captured, which must have been many, were gone. The mystery would not be solved by a suggestion that at ordinary times the water of this reach is too shallow. It is not extremely shallow. Hardly any part is less than a foot deep, and most of it is deeper. It is just such a bit of water as in many another river, and even in the same river, is a favourite haunt of the trout. At least one set of places which are generally supposed to be favourite haunts are not haunts at all. These are eddies. They are strangely attractive. They fascinate. In nearly all books on angling we are told not to pass them by untried. It would be possible to fill a chapter with quoted injunctions to that effect. One can understand why eddies are so alluring. Usually they are deep, and usually you 12 HOW TO FISH cannot see to the bottom of them ; they are just the places where trout, probably big ones, might be ex- pected to lurk. The facts of the case are not accord- ing to expectation. I have cast into many eddies, and have never taken a trout from any of them. None of them has ever yielded a rise. Indeed, eddies, I think, are the only specifiable places in a stream where trout are not to be caught. The fish would be drowned if they stayed there. Whatever position they took up, water would enter their gills from behind and suffocate them. Perhaps, however, the writers who dwell upon the engaging possibilities of an eddy do not really mean an eddy. They may be a little loose in their language. Eddies, after all, are not very common. There are a good many in large rivers, near the banks, at places where the free flow of the water is impeded, and there are some in small streams when a flood has come ; but an eddy in the middle of a river or of a stream is rare. The water behind a large stone in mid-stream is not eddying. It is nearly still. That is why it often holds a fish. It is a restful place. Flies are just as likely to alight there as anywhere else, and it is easy for the trout to snap up those which come down the flow on either side. Perhaps it is places such as that which the writers have in mind when they speak of eddies. THE TROUT 13 Real eddies, whirlpools, are, as has been said, to be found in large rivers. Suddenly the stream, after a straight run, turns ; then you will see a series of eddies near the bank towards which the water is beat- ing; and beside the other bank there will be a bit of slack water, probably moving backwards. Places such as that are very interesting to the fisherman. Not a trout is to be found in any of the whirlpools ; but sometimes there are many lying in the quick water just beyond the verge of them. At certain times of the year, when aquatic insects are much sought after, you may see them rising briskly. Sometimes they are a little beyond the reach of your fly-cast. That is tantalising; but it may not be necessary to despair. If you wait and watch, you may find that the whirlpool yields a little to the rush of the main stream, and that while it is in retreat the trout come nearer to the bank. About a hundred yards west of the railway bridge across the Tay between Dalguise and Guay there is a whirlpool such as I am endeavouring to describe. When first I came upon it there were about a dozen large trout just beyond the outmost rim, rising greedily. I threw the fly as well as I could ; again, and again, and again I threw ; but it never fell within two feet of the nearest trout. Then suddenly, without my having given more line, and with no exceptional help from the wind, 14 HOW TO FISH the fly fell into the thick of the rises ! A two- pounder was hooked instantly, and landed within ten minutes. When I returned to try for another, again the rises were out of reach. The fly fell about two feet short. Ere long, however, it suddenly fell all right, just as before, and another good fish was played into the landing-net. This went on until the night closed in. Long before then I had found the explanation. In the constant conflict between the eddy and the main flow there was a rhythmical ebb and expansion of the pool. Periodically the main flow gained a few feet against the eddy, and brought the trout with it, nearer. The bit of slack water on the other side of the river at such a place is always inviting ; but often it is a disappointment. If it is not moving backwards it may hold trout, especially in spring, when the fish are not strong enough to stay in the rapids, or in times of flood at the height of the season ; but one does not often find a fish if the water is moving backwards. Only, it is well to try just where the backwash strikes against the flow. Sometimes you will raise a fish there. Certain bits of water, we have noted, are par- ticularly good without any evident reason. About half a mile above the whirlpool just described, the Tay, which has been running to the south-east, turns THE TROUT 15 a point towards the south, and is a pool for about two hundred yards. On the left side the pool is rapid and deep ; on the other it ripples over a shelv- ing bank of gravel. Whenever there are salmon to be had anywhere in the river, this pool always has a few ; these, naturally, are lying in the rapids. In the shallows on the other side big brown-trout are always to be had. Why ? I cannot tell, and I do not think anybody can. The pool is certainly not one which a fisher unfamiliar with the river would choose if it were of great moment that he should catch a few trout. It is mostly shallow ; it is without weeds ; it has no tributary, not even a ditch ; it is as bleak and unpromising a pool as could well be imagined. Still, it is one of the best, if not quite the best, in the Tay. It is not, in any essential respect distinguish- able by the eye, different from other pools which are known to be very poor; but he must indeed be a duffer, or a very casual angler, who leaves it with an empty basket. Although I cannot explain why there are so many trout in it, I have learned from ex- perience on this pool one fact which seems to indicate a law about pools generally. When the trout are rising particularly well, all of them, or most of them, seem to be in the upper half of it. In the daylight, feeding trout, if they move at all, move up- stream. 16 HOW TO FISH On a pool such as that just described, a pool in which there are trout of all weights common in the river, it often happens that the fish caught are approximately of the same size. How is that ? This question has no kinship with the well-known royal problem as to why a bowl of water holding a living fish was not heavier than a bowl of the same size containing the same quantity of water without a fish. " I doubt the fact, my Liege," said a courtier to the King ; and the doubt was justified when the bowls were weighed. The assertion that is implicit in our own problem cannot be utterly gainsaid. Most anglers will admit it to be warranted. At times, it is true, the basket will have in it trout of all sizes characteristic of the water, or of nearly all ; but at other times it will not. One day the small fish rise, and the large ones stay down ; another day every fish landed is large, and the small ones seem to be gone. This is even more noticeable on a lake than on a stream. A lake on which I sometimes spend a few days is a typical case. Unless the weather is unfavourable, twenty trout in a few hours are to be had there. One day they will be not only four -to -the -pound but also quarter -pounders in- dividually; another day they will be three -to -the pound and a third of a pound each; sometimes, though not often, all of them will be approximately THE TROUT 17 half-pounders. On a river not far from the lake the uniformity in the size of the trout caught is in a certain respect more striking. There are in it fish of all weights ; yet on any day only fish of practically the same weight are taken. Sometimes they are light, from a third of a pound to a half, and then one usually has a dozen in an afternoon ; sometimes they are heavy, within an ounce or so, more or less, of If lb., and then one has four as a rule. Of the very small trout, those of the parr size, of which there must be millions in the river, I have never caught a single specimen. This, perhaps, is the most astonishing fact in the problem. What is the secret ? Any anglers whom I have heard discussing the question have a very simple view. They assume that sometimes only the small fish are feeding ; sometimes only those of middle size; sometimes only the large ones. This is a good " working hypothesis," enabling you, on occasion, to foresee the state of the basket at the close of the day ; but it is no more. Weather, as is well known, affects the appetite of the trout ; but it has never been suggested that the same atmospherical con- ditions influence fish of different sizes differently. It is taken for granted that they influence fish of all sizes in exactly the same way. Were this not 18 HOW TO FISH so, there being small trout in some streams, middling fish in others, and large ones in a few, we could not have a generally applicable science of the weather in relation to angling. That we do have such a science, to be indicated in another chapter, in- validates the simple explanation. My own belief is that the puzzle we are considering is due to Individualism. That principle seems to be natur- ally inherent in every community, high or humble, great or small. It is at once a check upon the social instinct and the cause of racial improvement. It is to be perceived at work among the trout. There is an order of precedence in each shoal. If you watch carefully what goes on in a stream, an odd usage will be detected. During spring and summer the fish never lie closely together side by side. Rather, they are in Indian file. This peculiarity is best seen just below the entrance of a ditch or other tributary bringing worms or grubs or similar tid- bits. You will find a good many trout there. The largest is poised close to where the tributary joins the stream ; the second-largest is a foot or so behind him ; the third-largest at a similar distance from the second ; and so on in diminishing scale. Why ? Observe the vigilance of the first trout, and you will understand. He is snapping at the juiciest grubs and rising at the most attractive flies. How THE TROUT 19 alert he is ; how ravenous ! He is nearest the entrance to the tributary because in that position he has first choice of the good things it is bearing down. For what he leaves, the others, in their turns, are on the watch. If any of these sought to usurp the place of the first fish there would be battle and a rout. Indeed, if you hook the first, the second will be established in his hover long before you need the landing-net. Does this lesson in the ways of trout shed light on the similarity in the size of fish by which a basket is so often characterised ? If every trout in your creel is large, may it not be because, although all the fish in the water were in a mood to feed, the larger ones, being in particularly good appetite, bore themselves, to- wards the flies coming down, in a manner that in- timidated the youngsters ? Investigation will reveal something like a crouching fright among the small trout when the great fish are feeding. They may rise now and then ; but in doing so they are careful never to be in a big one's way. A basket of small fish, which is more common, may be accounted for similarly. Young trout feed more frequently than full-grown ones, and when the large fish are not disposed to rise the small are free from restraint. Now and then there comes another perplexing experience. Trout after trout rises; but not one 20 HOW TO FISH is caught. You look to see whether the hooks are right, and find no explanation. There is not the slightest doubt about the rises. You see the breaks in the water. You feel the jerks at the line. How is it possible that time after time fish can take such a risk and never pay the penalty ? They are " rising short. 11 That is the accepted phrase. It suggests its own meaning. If they rose a little less short, we are to understand, they would be hooked. They are merely snapping at the wings of the flies, and so escaping. Why they should snap at the wings, or how they can do it with such accuracy, is not always mentioned ; but there is a theory. It is believed to be possible that some peculiarity of the light may deflect the vision of the fish ; that their aim is upset ; that they just miss flies which they really mean to seize. This sounds plausible ; but it cannot be considered explanatory. The tugs at the line are so palpable that they could not possibly be produced by contact of the trouts' teeth with the soft wings of the lures. The steel also must be in some contact with the fish. What contact ? Once I thought that, instead of being with the mouths of the trout, it was with some other part of them. This notion arose when, after many short rises and no fish, I landed one lassoed by the tail. The hook had looped itself with the gut, and the THE TROUT 21 trout was fast. In favour of the surmise there was the consideration that sometimes, although feeding busily, the fish are not paying much attention to flies on the surface. In the position of a sulking salmon, which is tail-up and head-down, some of them are preying upon flies that are rising from the bottom of the water. Was it not conceiv- able that they might frequently, by accident, strike against the hooks, which scratched though they did not hold? Trout are sometimes in a strange humour that might have a similar result. They try to drown flies that are sitting on the surface. They leap up and sometimes out, and strike the insects with their tails. Why the fish should wish to drown the flies, which rise again as quickly as fragments of cork, it is not easy to tell; but that they do try occasionally is beyond question. Can it be held, then, that when trout are " rising short " they are not putting their lips to the flies at all ? I do not now think so. What seemed to be a revelation of the truth came, last summer, on a mountain stream. For two or three hours I had been catching trout quickly. Then the sport ceased. At nearly every cast, as before, there was a twitch at the line, which seemed to indicate a bite ; but when I struck the line was loose. By and by, on the way upstream, I came to a large rock over- 22 HOW TO FISH hanging a pool ; the bottom was bright sand, and the water, though of amber colour, clear ; it would be possible to see all that should go on. Here and there, during the morning, I had witnessed, when the sun- rays were in a favourable slant, the action of a trout in " the time of the take." The fish had rushed at the worm, sometimes from near the bank, sometimes from the open water, and gorged it instantly. Now, in the pool under observation, the procedure was different. Almost immediately on the lure being cast into the water, a trout came to it ; but the worm did not disappear. It was not gorged. Instead of taking the bait, the trout pushed it along in a series of little darts, apparently about an inch at a time. In the pauses between the darts the worm, as it did not sink to the bottom, was undoubtedly held by the lips of the fish ; but it was held by no more than the skin. When I struck, it came away and the trout was free. This, with other trout, was repeated, again and again. It was marvellous, a feat of seemingly prudential nimble- ness so startlingly perfect that only the witness of one's eyes could make it credible ; but it was, I think, capable of being understood, and the inter- pretation seemed to explain the mystery known as " rising short." The stream was slightly flooded by a night's rain. During the morning, as is their THE TROUT 23 wont on a rise of the water, the trout had been feeding greedily on the food brought by the flood. Then they had become sated, and had ceased to eat. They had not, however, lost all interest in worms. These still attracted ; but, disinclined to swallow any more, the trout merely toyed with the prey. They did so, in the manner I have described, with amazing delicacy and without risk. Is it not probable that when "rising short" the trout are treating our flies, after a feast of insects, exactly as these mountain fish treated the worms after a more substantial feast, snapping at them in agile curiosity and puffing them instantly away ? Our theory is encouraged by reflection on the general ways of the trout. In practically all emer- gencies, when not put off-guard by greed, he is a sagacious fish. The peril of drought which he miraculously survives in the Yorkshire becks is hardly greater than a risk which he frequently runs from flood. Quarter of a mile from where these words are being written is a river that is not infrequently obliterated. Heavy rains set in ; inch by inch the stream, which has its source in a lake, begins to rise ; within twelve hours it is over- flowing here and there. If the storm lasts two days more, the valley, half a mile broad, is under water. Only the railway, near the middle, is to be seen. If 24 HOW TO FISH they have a journey to make, villagers must go to the station in a boat. Sheep, rabbits, and other creatures on the meadows are in terror, and many of them are swept away. In a recent flood a herd of Shetland ponies found themselves surrounded by the rising water. Their plight was pitiable. They neighed and screamed. Only a few contrived to stand their ground. The others perished. When the flood comes, man, though he has been familiar with these parts for centuries, is helpless. He cannot even save his cattle or his crops. The very earth itself succumbs. The banks break, and thousands of tons of soil are carried down the river. Gazing upon the turbulent waste of waters, the roar of which fills the air for miles on either side, one would think that the trout must have lost their bearings ; but have they ? When the flood has passed, how many shall you find stranded in the meadows ? Not one. The whole little world around them is in anarchy, and they explore the meadows and even the roads, picking up much fine booty as they go ; but when order is restored each trout will be back in his old hover, serene. How are we to get him out ? The angler's methods are not a few. Before describing them systematically, we must consider the instrument which is common to all, the Rod. CHAPTER II THE ROD Modem Simplicity Steel "Centre" Toughness of Cane- Lockfast Joint Spiral Joint Treble - grip Joint Stability of Cane Tubular Steel Subtleties of the Subject On Clatto Loch Cane Point Droops on Striking Stiffness Necessary Greeuheart Less Languid than Cane Casting Tournaments Qualities in which Greenheart is Superior Qualities in which it is Inferior Hope for Greeuheart On Loch Dochart Where Lightness is Needed Where Weight is Needed Con- clusions from experience verified by a simple Test. IN days not long gone by rods were of considerable variety. Ash, hickory, lancewood, greenheart, whale- bone, and other materials contributed to their making. Hardly any rod was of single substance. Nearly every rod had at least two woods, and a tip of whale- bone was almost a general rule. In these later days the most skilful users of rods, and the most skilled makers, are in favour of simplicity. It may be said that the rods in the market or on the waters are of 25 26 HOW TO FISH only two kinds, and that each kind is in a sense elementary. Rods of one class are in all parts greenheart ; the others are in all parts cane. Indeed, there is some expectation of still further progress in simplicity. Built-cane is so much in favour that the more enthusiastic of its admirers expect greenheart to be abandoned. Their belief is not likely to be justified. The cane rod, which has been familiar for nearly a generation, was originally American. The structure is exceedingly ingenious. Canes, of a particular kind and properly seasoned, are cut into triangular strips ; six of these are fitted, cemented, and bound together ; and the product is a rod similar in shape to the natural cane, but without the hollow or the soft substance in the middle, solid. Such is the simplest type of the rod. Another type is "double-built. 11 It is, in effect, the same implement sheathed in another set of strips. Usually a rod of that build, which, being designed for heavy work, is longer than the " single-built " rod, is fitted with a steel " centre." It is said that the steel is more flexible than the cane. If that be so, one cannot readily perceive what advantage it confers. The cane, when in dangerous stress, cannot be prevented from breaking by a core that gives more readily and farther than itself. Perhaps, as it is possible for a rod to be too light, THE ROD THE LOCKFAST JOINT. (From a sketch lent by Messrs. Hardy Brothers.) 28 HOW TO FISH the steel is of help in lending weight. This touches upon a problem to be discussed a little later. The built-cane rod, when made by a first-class craftsman, is in certain respects admirable. It is tough. I have been using a twelve-foot built-cane, on waters of all kinds, for ten years, in which time it has taken over four thousand trout, a good many grayling, and, by happy chance, about a dozen salmon. It seems not a whit the worse for the wear. It has never been broken. It is still, when in repose, straight. Three or four times it has been back to the makers 1 ; but only on one occasion has it been in need of more than varnishing and a fresh whipping- on of a ring here and there. That was when, about four years ago, the ferrules had become a little worn. The pieces are fitted together by an ingenious device known as the lockfast joint. The name is accurately descriptive while the ferrules are not worn ; but after that it is ambiguous. The grip being permanent vertically, neither of the pieces can fly out of its place, and thus, with the rod in question, I have never had a mishap such as is common with rods lacking some device of the kind ; but when the brass has been worn by much putting in and taking out, even slightly worn, the pieces turn in the sockets. Then the line, instead of being straight from reel to tip, THE ROD becomes coiled on the rod, and at frequent intervals one has to readjust the ferrules. The trouble of doing so is easily overlooked ; but there is a risk that the dislocation may have unobservedly come about when a lively large trout has been hooked. Coiled round the rod, the line would not run freely; and it is vexatious to lose a fish from such a cause. Other rods with fittings of the type described are probably better than mine, which is not of the latest make. The craft of rod - making progresses year by year. It is possible that ferrules are now of brass so hard that there is practic- ally no wear at all. As there is but little friction in put- ting up and taking down a rod, there does not seem much reason why this should not be so. M i THE SPIRAL JOINT. (From a sketch lent by Mr. P. D. Malloch.) 30 HOW TO FISH Another device for fixing the ferrules is depicted. The cap B, in manufacturing, is brazed over the spiral part of the hollow ferrule, A ; a stud fitted on the solid ferrule runs through the spiral to the bottom ; C shows the pieces put together. Theoretically this contrivance seems to be open to the possibility of undoing which was actualised in the lockfast joint ; but I use a rod in which it is adapted, and have never found it a failure. Although that should satisfy the most exacting angler, I will give an illustration of still another apparatus. It is the Lloyd treble -grip joint. Fig. 1 is the solid ferrule ; Fig. 2, the hollow ; Fig. 3, the two put together. On the hollow ferrule there is a stud, A ; into which runs a hook, B, on the solid ferrule ; C, on the solid ferrule, is a sleeve, which, drawn down, renders slipping impossible. A point in favour of built-cane is that it supports these or any other fittings with extraordinary success. The seasoned cane is so dry that it seems not to shrink a hairVbreadth after manufacture. In the discussion as to what is the ideal rod, which is every year renewed in the journals of sport, there have been very many testimonies that built-cane does not snap at the base of the lower ferrule or at the top of the upper. These statements are in accord with my own experience. None of the THE ROD LA A... F-B FIG. I FIG.2 FIG.5 THE LLOYD TREBLE-GRIP JOINT. (From a sketch lent by Messrs. Hardy Brothers.) 32 HOW TO FISH four or five built-cane rods which I have used has ever snapped at a joint or anywhere else. None, indeed, has ever become weak at a joint. The ferrules are still as rigid as if they were naturally integral parts of the structure. If we exclude from consideration tubular steel, the defects of which have not yet been overcome, a built-cane rod is as tough a rod as can be found. You can fish with it, from season to season, in confidence that it will not break at anything less than a very unreasonable strain. Toughness, however, is not the only quality desirable in a rod. It is good when a fish is on ; but, by itself, it is not of much use before that. Here we enter into the subtleties of our subject. These I have had occasion to study, ever since I made the discovery that rods have astonishing in- dividualities. That was on Clatto Loch, lying on the southern uplands of Fife, a good many years ago. William M. Rhodes and I were fishing from a boat. The trout were rising well, and we had caught many. Rhodes had recently become the possessor of a built-cane rod, then a novelty in the northern latitudes, and was as proud as a baby with a new toy. " Try it," he said, generously ; and we exchanged. The rises went on ; but I could not hook a fish. There was some strange difference THE ROD 33 between this new-fangled wand and my old green- heart. It lacked backbone. It was wobbly. Although I struck at the instant of a rise, the trout was always off and away, seemingly at leisure, never even pricked as far as could be known. Ten minutes with that invertebrate weapon sufficed me. In handing it back, I made no definite remark, being unwilling to risk a breach of the peace; but I reflected deeply. At every strike the point of the rod, instead of rising, had seemed to droop. Was that possible ? It seemed against nature. It must be an illusion. Thus I reasoned at the time ; and this, when the subject recurred, I continued to assume for years, until, indeed, only a few months ago, when, reading one of the journals of sport, I found stated as a certainty the very thought I had entertained with misgiving. The writer, joining in the recurrent discussion to which we have referred, declared that on the strike the first movement of the tip of a built-cane rod was downwards ! Immediately I made an experiment, and found the statement correct. If you raise the rod gently all is well ; but if you make the action of striking, which is sudden, the point droops. Very soon, it is true, the top- piece recovers and springs up; but between the droop and the reaction there has been time enough for a trout, if lucky, to detect his error and eject 34 HOW TO FISH the lure. The cause of the droop is obvious. The material is too lissome for its own weight. Tough- ness is only one mode of strength. It is of great value in a rod ; but the rod needs another mode of strength as well. It needs stiffness in a certain measure. That measure may be defined by saying that the rod should not be so pliant that the top- piece droops sensibly when the butt is sharply tilted. Has greenheart, then, the quality which built- cane lacks? Testing the two on a trout-stream, one would be apt to conclude that it has ; but that would not be exactly the truth. Careful observation will show that a built-cane rod and a greenheart rod act similarly when you strike. There is in each case an initial droop of the tip. Between the two actions, however, there is one important difference. The droop of the greenheart is not so great as that of the built-cane ; that is because greenheart is less pliant. The recovery of the greenheart is quicker ; that is because greenheart is more resilient. In short, greenheart is less languid than built-cane. It makes the more mettlesome weapon. Saving in one respect, to be considered immedi- ately, the greenheart rod is, therefore, the better tool. Those whose acquaintance with angling is casual have a predilection in favour of rods that are very pliant. They seem to have inherited from THE ROD 35 the ancients a belief that flies should be " worked " on the water in order to give them an aspect of liveliness, and a whippy rod does certainly lend itself better than a stiffish one to that wagging- up-and-down practice which may still be witnessed when you come upon an old-fashioned angler. The truth is that the flies, when on the stream, should be as little as possible affected in their motions by rod or line, and thus a rod of excessive pliability has no advantage to be set against its slowness in striking. With a breeze in your favour, it may cast well enough, but no better, no more comfortably, than a rod that is not whippy. When the breeze is against you, it is possible to cast with a stiffish rod fairly well, while with a whippy rod it is hardly possible to cast at all. A measure of stiffness, then, is desirable at all times. We have already seen what it is in regard to the dynamics of the rod as revealed in striking. The point of the rod should instantly, or almost instantly, respond as required to the action of the wrist. What measure of stiffness is best in relation to throwing the line and playing a trout ? That has not yet been determined. Within recent years, "casting tournaments," local, national, and international, have brought out interesting facts ; but these facts are concerned more with the comparative accomplishments of the competitors than with the 36 HOW TO FISH relative values of their rods. A rod that has been successful when wielded by one champion may easily be defeated when wielded by another. Besides, we should not be much helped towards answering our question even if the heroes of the tourneys, mostly professional rod-makers, could contrive definitely to decide the contest in which they are recurringly engaged. Their problem is not exactly ours. They seek to find the type of rod that will cast farthest ; we are seeking the rod that, having cast far, will be delicate enough to be trusted against the cantrips of a vigorous fish. Eventually, perhaps, these two in- struments may be found identical. Our point at present is that the rod which has the greatest reach at a tournament may not be the best on a stream. It may be so cumbrous that between it and a good trout the gut would snap. It is possible for a rod to be too unyielding. The proper weapon " gives " to some extent. That is necessary not only because pliancy helps in throwing the line but also because unbending resistance to the fish would in many cases result in breakage. This any one can verify by using trout-tackle on a heavy salmon-rod. He may, it is true, land a good fish ; but he is much more likely, immediately after striking, to lose both fish and fly. Well, as has been said, the problem as to what is the ideal stiffness, or the ideal pliability, has not been THE ROD 37 determined scientifically ; but we are not altogether without means of judgment. I do not think that the majority of anglers who have tested the leading types sufficiently will disagree with me in believing that the ideal trout rod is most closely approximated in greenheart. When the atmosphere is still, the ordinary angler will throw a line with a greenheart rod as far as he can throw with a built-cane rod. In a favourable slight breeze, the one will do as well as the other. In an adverse breeze, greenheart will do better than built-cane. It will do better, also, in a favourable high wind. Power is then needful to the management of the back cast tidily, and, though the greenheart may break at a pull which the cane survives, it has, while intact, a lively energy, peculiar to itself, against which cane cannot compete. Then, besides being, as we have seen, quicker than cane in recoil from its slighter droop on the strike, greenheart, in a trout rod, is not appreciably harsher in action when a fish is hooked. Again, at that moment, its peculiar resilience comes pleasantly into play. In short, as between trout rods of equal length and approximately equal weight, greenheart, in action, is not in any respect inferior to built-cane, and is in some respects better. Does it remain in action as long as its rival ? That brings us to the matter in reserve at the 38 HOW TO FISH opening of last paragraph. For about nine seasons until the year 1905 I used built-cane rods only, and, as has been noted, none of them ever suffered from anything more serious than wearing of the ferrules. All my three or four earlier rods, greenhearts, broke in my hands. Not only did they break : they broke often, and they became, successively, incapable of effective repair. It is true that, one of them excepted, these rods were not indubitably first-class specimens of their kind. They were rods of modest merit, such as those in which uncles traffic when moved to benevolence by your birthday. Still, such as they were, they are, in retrospect, relevant to our subject. If all one hears and reads be true, they were not much different from greenheart rods in general. It is a common experience that greenheart is peculiarly liable to break. The reason is not far to seek. In a built-cane rod the natural skin of the material is retained, and the skin, besides being hard, does not seem to be porous. On the other hand, the piece of a greenheart rod, which is a strip of wood cut from a plank, has no natural protection against damp. It is varnished ; but a scratch or a grazing, which may easily come about by accident, is sufficient to admit moisture. Then, whilst the grain of the one material is always straight, the .grain of the other is in many cases THE ROD 39 not so, and that is a source of danger. Besides, cane seems susceptible of seasoning to perfection, until it is absolutely dry and cannot shrink ; but it is difficult to season greenheart, which in many cases, after the rod is made, does shrink. Thus, while a built-cane rod hardly ever breaks in' fair play, many a greenheart is undone therein. It is more liable to rot than the cane rod, and may snap unexpectedly at any part. A shrinking of the wood makes a looseness at the base of the hollow ferrules or at the head of the solid ones, and the brasses become levers, working against the wood at every cast ; this puts the rod at these parts in danger, to which they not infrequently succumb. The answer to our question, then, is that green- heart rods, on the average, do not remain so long in action as built-cane rods. Their natural lives are briefer. Still, this statement is far from being a condemnation. You can have two first-class green- hearts for little more than the price of one built- cane. As each of the pair is readily liable to disaster, while the other is not so, that consideration can be made the basis of no more than a dubious economy ; but it may be mentioned. Economy of cash, how- ever, is not, or should not be, the angler's sole thought in choosing a rod or rods. A rod in the soundness of -which you can put absolute trust 40 HOW TO FISH guarantees economy of painful emotions, and built- cane meets that want. On the other hand, who shall deny that an attractive philosophy inspired the angler who declared that he had broken fourteen rods of greenheart and hoped to break many more ? He makes light of the risk run with greenheart because the pleasure of using it is great. Perhaps he will not have to offer many sacrifices before he finds a rod capable of enduring sufficiently to satisfy demands much more exacting than his own. Throughout our comparison, it will have been noted, we have been speaking of built-cane in general and greenheart in general. The conclusion is no more sweeping than that of the rods in general use there are many more breakages among the greenhearts than among the canes. That is all. The first-class greenhearts are very much fewer than the first-class canes ; and that may involve the discovery that the superior tenacity of the cane rods is casual rather than permanent. There is reason for thinking that some greenhearts are as sound as the best of canes. I believe this of the two which I myself recently acquired. I believe it not only from my own knowledge of them, not yet in itself a sufficient ground for certitude, but also on the authority of a celebrated technical judge, who tells me that he has been using rods of the same make for nearly THE ROD 41 twenty years and has never had a smash. All green- heart is not cross-grained ; some of it is almost as straight in the grain as bamboo itself; and there are one or two professional craftsmen who for more than a generation have been using none other than this unexceptionable wood. A professional rod -maker who uses cane is at an advantage over the rival who uses greenheart. The rival's stock of material affords, after careful scrutiny, only a few good pieces ; while practically every cane is perfect. That is why, of all the rods in the world, built-canes first-rate of their kind are so common and greenhearts of similar excellence so rare. The best greenheart rods are in all respects better than the best built-cane rods, and are well worth the trouble of finding. That is clear ; but our question is not yet com- pletely answered. We have discussed the rod in relation to the characteristic qualities of the two main classes ; but we have not taken note of the conditions amid which it is to be used. These are various. A rod that is suitable on one water at one time is not necessarily suitable on another, or even on the same water in different weather. This I had impressive cause to realise not many years ago. Just before Whitsuntide a group of friends casually gathered at luncheon had agreed that the holidays could not be better spent than on Loch Dochart. 42 HOW TO FISH One of them, who had never fished before, had asked me to help him in choosing a rod ; and I had done so, at a well-known shop in Pall Mall. The rod was 12 feet and weighed 14 ounces. At the close of the first day on the loch my friend, having caught a few trout, was well pleased with it ; but next day, having been fishing for an hour with a rod lent to him by another member of the party, he suddenly exclaimed, " Why, this little rod works far better than mine ! " His tone conveyed a criticism for which there was some warrant. It meant that the rod I had chosen was too heavy and needlessly strong. In a certain sense that was true. The rod was a good one for general purposes, which I had had in mind, foreseeing that my friend would fish in many waters ; but it was not then quite right on that particular loch. The trout there, or at least those which rise to the fly, are not heavy, a fish over three-quarters of a pound being unusually large. They are easily managed by a very light rod, such as the 5-ounce one that had brought knowledge to my friend, who, being professionally at work with instruments of exact science, is quick in perception. Why should he have the effort of using a rod which, with the reel, weighed fully 1 Ib. when one a third of the weight sufficed ? Indeed, he might have pushed criticism farther. THE ROD 43 Besides being needlessly heavy on Loch Dochart, his own rod was less effective than the other. It was not so quick on the strike. It missed many a trout that would not have been missed by the light rod. Since then experiments, voluntary and involuntary, have impelled me to the conclusion that lightness is an elementary quality in a perfect rod. The rod should never be heavier than the weight of the fish likely to rise demands. This is for a reason other than that of the comfort derived by the angler from not being unnecessarily burdened. The lighter the rod, the less is the droop of the top-piece when you tilt the butt. In the case of the small rods, weighing between four and six ounces, the droop is so slight as to be negligible. At that weight even built-cane may be considered perfect in its action. Loch Dochart is a fair example of a large class of Highland waters on which, in fly-fishing, a very light rod is appropriate. Most of these lochs have great trout as well as small ones ; but it is only on rare occasions, usually in the opening weeks of the season, that fish over a pound rise at fly. Now, it is a fact, though not generally realised, that the smaller a trout is the more difficult it is to hook him. Besides being more rapid in movement, the small fish actually seem to be less reckless, when they rise, than the large ones. Large fish, when 44 HOW TO FISH they do rise, are usually in earnest, seizing the fly so uncompromisingly that they would often hook themselves if you did not strike ; but so nimble are the small ones, it would almost appear that they rise with deliberate design to puff out the lure the moment it is taken. Thus, a quick rod, which is a light rod, is the best on lakes or streams in which the commonalty of trout are not over f Ib. On such waters I used to fish with a 12-foot rod weighing, with the reel, nearly 1 Ib., and missed about half the rises ; now, with a 5-oz. rod, the misses, I think, are not more than one in three. That is on lakes and streams where trout varying between Ib. and f Ib. are the rule. Unmistakable evidence in favour of the principle I have ventured to state will be found by any one who tests it on an ordinary mountain stream, the fish of which are between | oz. and 2 oz. In favourable weather there will be at least one rise at almost every throw of the flies. Use a 12-oz. rod, and you will miss nine chances out of ten ; then try the lightest of rods, and the misses will be not more than three in ten. This statement is not made carelessly. It is the outcome of studious experiments. It sheds a help- ful light on the question of what is the proper rod. There is no rod that will suffice for all occasions. We must distinguish among the sets of circumstance. THE ROD 45 Wherever the trout are under f lb., the rod, on streams that are not too broad for a cast such as can be made with a 9-foot weapon, and on all lakes of the Loch Dochart class, should, in temperate weather, be not more than 5| oz. At that weight and under built-cane rods are almost if not quite as quick as greenhearts. On waters of another class the choice between cane and greenheart is, in calm or in a light breeze, mainly a matter of taste. I am thinking of large and quickly-running rivers in which heavy trout are to be expected. There, in the rough water, you throw the flies towards the opposite bank and let them go round and down. Usually, the stream, even in some of the pools, being rather wild, it is not by the eyesight that you detect a rise. It is by the sense of touch. You feel a pluck, or a pull, or note a stoppage of the line. Instinctively you strike, of course, and that is not wrong ; but often the trout is hooked already. The strike, if it be not too sharp, does but confirm what the fish himself has done and minister to your agreeable sense of sportsmanlike alertness. Usually, that is to say, the result would be the same if you did no more than raising the rod decorously and reeling in. For work such as that, in which a strike in the ordinary sense is not necessary, a built-cane rod, 12 feet long and weighing about 46 HOW TO FISH as many ounces, is obviously as good, in fair weather, as a greenheart of similar dimensions. Though less lively to the hand, it will throw the fly as well, or nearly so, and when a trout is on its action is not less effective. In adverse weather, having less propelling force than greenheart, the built-cane is the less serviceable rod. Even on a lake, where you do not often cast against the wind, it is feeble when the breeze is more than light, and sorely buffeted in a storm. Greenheart picks up the flies and manages them much more neatly. Then, whatever the weather may be, the greenheart rod, either in wet-fly fishing or in dry-fly fishing, is at all times preferable on waters that run smoothly. There you see the rises, instead of becoming con- scious of them by the sense of touch. There, also, though sometimes casting across and letting the flies go down a little way, you usually, whether the lures be floating or dipping, cast in some direction upstream, and therefore, the line being loose, have to strike on the instant of a rise, instead of trusting that the trout may hook himself. Amid these conditions, being quicker in action than a built-cane, the greenheart is the preferable rod. Most of the trout waters in the United Kingdom are such as can be fished either with a 9-foot rod or with a 12-foot ; but if one is to fish in many THE ROD 47 places it is well to have two or three rods of different lengths between those sizes. A change from one to another is agreeable. Sometimes, also, as certain comparatively small waters hold heavy trout, such FlG.I GREENHEART ROD AND BUILT- CANE ROD UNDER TEST. (Engraved from photographs. ) as cannot be kept in check by the lightest rod, it is practically desirable to have an ample choice. Thus far we have been speaking from experience on the water. Our sketches, reproduced from photo- graphs, show forth a test of rods within-doors. One of the rods is a 12-foot built-cane, and the other is a 12-foot greenheart; they are of the same weight, and have been in use for years. In Fig. 1 they are 48 HOW TO FISH together, erect, separate only when looked at through a magnifying glass. In Fig. 2 we see them as they were when each was holding a 14-oz. weight. In P'ig. 3 they are released from the strain. It is the greenheart that makes the better appearance. At the pull its tip stood twelve inches higher than that of the other, and seven inches farther out. Just after release the cane rod had a " hang " six inches greater than the very slight bend of the other. The indoor test confirmed the belief that greenheart is superior alike in stiffness and in temper. CHAPTER III FITTINGS OF THE ROD The Reel Misdirected Ingenuity " Regulating Checks " Weight of Reel The Line What Should its Weight be ? General Principles of Adjustment Fallacies as to Tapering The Casting Line The Back Taper The Cast Horse Hair Silkworm Gut Drawn and Un- drawn Methods of Tying Tapered Casts Throwing a Fly What is the Knack ? From the Top-piece or from the Butt ? IN the case of a properly-fitted rod the reel and the line are parts of a scientific apparatus. They are in an approximately definite proportion to the weight of the rod, which, laid across a finger, balances at about nine inches above the reel. There seems to be a general agreement as to what is the best shape of the reel. That will be seen from our illustration. It will be noticed that the reel is large in the sides and narrow between them. Old-fashioned reels were less large in the sides 49 4 50 HOW TO FISH and wider. The improvement lies in the fact that with the modern reel you can wind up much more quickly. As looseness of line is not less likely than heavy strain to result in a trout winning free, many a disappointment must have been suffered of old through imperfect machinery rather than from lack of skill. With a modern reel you recover the line so quickly that as a rule you can keep in constant touch with a fish when he comes towards you. Much thought has been directed to the per- fecting of the reel ; but some of the ingenuity has been wasted. Consider, for example, the reel with perforated sides. The intention, which was that air should pass through the holes and dry the line, is not fulfilled. The air may dry the few inches of line that face the holes ; but it does not penetrate to the many yards inside, which, if damp and allowed to remain so for a few days, begin to rot. There need be no difficulty about preserving the line. It may be unwound, on reaching home, in a warm room, where it will be dried in half an hour; or it may be put on a " drier," a simple contrivance to be obtained at the tackle-maker's. There is some reason for thinking that the " regulating check " is another instance of excessive solicitude in invention. The elementary check, it will be understood, is the automatic break met by FITTINGS OF THE ROD 51 the line when it is being pulled out. That is all right. It is the break that gives forth a cheerful sound when a fish is bolting. A break is necessary then. If the spindle were unchecked, the trout might make it revolve so rapidly that part of the line AN AUTOMATIC-CHECK KBEL. besides that actually rushed off would become loose, and that might cause a kink and a hopeless tangle. It is not certain, however, that a " regulating check " is desirable. That is an attachment by which, on moving a small screw fixed to a rim of the reel, you can increase or lessen the strength of the resistance 52 HOW TO FISH to the outgoing line. Some very cool heads with a liking for machinery find pleasure in it; but the ordinary person does not manage it easily. Besides, it is not probable that there are many anglers who can attribute the loss of a fish to a good reel equipped with a fixed check. What is the proper weight of the reel ? This is a very interesting question. In any discussion of it which I have read a main consideration has been overlooked. It has been said that a rod should, when placed across a finger, balance at about nine inches above the reel. Thus are the proprieties stated in the shop of the tackle-maker, and what you are told there is not far wrong; but a better way of putting the case is to say that the point at which the rod balances should not be higher than nine inches above the reel. If the point of balance is higher, either the reel is needlessly light or there is too much weight in the part of the rod which is above the reel. The end of the butt must be at least to a certain extent weighty if the spring of the rod is to be utilised. That, however, does not imply that the spring will not be properly utilised if the end of the butt is so heavy that the point of balance is less than nine inches above the reel. Indeed, the action of the rod is not injuriously affected then. A little extra weight FITTINGS OF THE ROD 53 at the end of the butt does not matter. The reason will perhaps suggest itself in remarks, soon to be made, as to the manner in which a rod should be handled. Here let it be noted that, whilst a novice may easily choose a reel too light, he is not likely to choose one that is too heavy. In other words, the limit of lightness, in relation to the rod, is fixed, fixed by the statement as to balance that has been made ; but what we may call the limit of weight is variable. As it is often convenient to be able to use the same reel on different rods, this is of some importance. Lines, like rods, have been undergoing evolution towards simplicity. They were in a sense simple enough until and in the age of plaited horsehair ; but just after that there began a long period of ex- periment, during which the more fashionable were of complex textures. Nowadays the accepted line is of silk, plaited and made " waterproof." A still better may be discovered or invented ; but we have reason to be satisfied. Plaited silk, besides being easily managed and pleasant to the touch, is very strong. Given fair play, the thinnest standard line of that material would not yield to the weightiest and wildest trout in the world. It may be asked, Then why use any other than the thinnest, which is the least likely to alarm the fish ? 54 HOW TO FISH The explanation is implicit in the principle that rod, reel, and line constitute a scientifically-ordered apparatus. It is not mainly because large fish call for stronger tackle than the thinnest that lines are of varied size. It is because rods of different con- stitutions require to be fitted with lines of different weights. That is to say, a line which is thicker than another is thicker not primarily because it needs to be stronger but primarily because it needs to be heavier. Here, if we are experimentally handling rods as we go along with these reflections, we come upon a strange discovery. Naturally one would suppose that the lightest lines are for the lightest rods, the less light for the less light, the heavy for the heavy, and the heaviest for the heaviest ; but that is not the case. A statement in the contrary sense would be more nearly the truth. At any rate, it would indicate a principle of adjustment between rod and line. An 8-oz. rod of no more than usual pliancy will throw the thinnest standard line better than the smallest rod. It will do so partly because that line has in itself less power than a less thin one of equal density to pass through the atmosphere, and partly because the weightier rod has greater power of propulsion than the other. Are we, then, to have heavy lines for light rods FITTINGS OF THE ROD 55 and light lines for heavy rods ? A rule to that effect would, as has been said, indicate a principle of adjustment ; but it would do no more. It would be partial and misleading. A very heavy line on a very light rod would injure the rod. The act of throwing a line properly puts a rod to a greater strain than playing a trout does. If the line is of more than a certain weight, the rod is unfairly treated. This is readily realised. At least, it will be speedily obvious to any one who casts a salmon line with a trout rod, or with the same rod and its own line throws a large salmon fly. The rod will be felt to be in dangerous stress. On the other hand, a very light line on a very light rod may be hardly less injurious. If there is a breeze from behind you, all will go well ; but if the atmosphere is still, the light line, which must be driven through it, will call for too great a strain, and if there is an adverse breeze the rod will probably be broken. For the same reason, the line to be attached to a large or largish trout-rod has to be carefully chosen. Such a rod may be overstrained either by too much weight in the line or by the force needed to propel a line too light. The largest possible rod, even a salmon-rod, could be put in similar straits by similar means. It might snap if it were used with the force that would be needed to cast a Mayfly on a line of 56 HOW TO FISH floss silk across a thirty-yard-wide stream, or if it were called upon to cover the same distance with a conger line carrying a baited trolling-flight. How, then, are we to determine the fitting relation between rod and line ? That cannot be done exactly. It is rendered impossible by the facts that the forces latent in any two rods of the same length and weight, even if they are also of the same material, are never to be assumed equal, and that if one rod is built- cane and the other greenheart the inequalities may be great. The fitting relation, however, may have been suggested by the general considerations just set forth. The rest, the actual adjustment, is to be settled by trial. Any expert, whether angler or maker of tackle, can find for any well-made rod the line that fits. That will be of a weight to bring forth the full power of the rod without excessive strain. Generally it will be slightly heavier than an unguided novice would think proper. Judging from what has been said, the reader may be astonished to find that the thinnest of the standard lines seems to have been ruled out of court. What, he will wonder, is the use of it ? It is of no use in fly-fishing, in connexion with which we have been studying the rod ; but it is the best for fishing with worms and other baits that sink. It is the best in that employment because, whilst the weight FITTINGS OF THE ROD 57 at the end neutralises its lightness, it is the least alarming to the trout. Should the fly-fishing line be tapered ? Should it, indeed, be double -tapered ? These questions have agitated the anglers' 1 clubs. Lest the phrases do not bear their meanings on their faces, it should be explained that the single taper is constituted by a gradual attenuation beginning about four yards from the outer end of a line, and the double taper by similar attenuation going backwards from a point behind determined by the length of the average cast. The theory of the single taper is that it prolongs the structure of the rod. The rod, for at least three-quarters of its length, tapers to the point ; the line is thinner than the tip of the top-piece ; it seems natural that the line itself should be graduated. Similarly, the double taper has the aspect of reason- ableness. The weight of the part between the tapers, it is felt, must carry the fly or flies all the more easily by virtue of the bit of line just above the tip of the rod being so thin that it meets but little resistance from the atmosphere. Though anxious to be as infrequently as possible in conflict with the experts, I cannot give unreserved assent to their teachings on the subject of tapers. A fallacy lurks in them. 58 HOW TO FISH In the case of the loop rod, a wonderful instru- ment still to be seen on the Clyde, the line may really be deemed a prolongation of the rod. It does not run from a reel. It is fixed to the tip of the rod. It can be cast farther than a line that runs from a reel through rings. In ordinary case the line, though it acts in unison with the rod, is not more a part of the rod than a bullet is part of the rifle. It is a projectile. It is tethered, captive ; but it is dynamically separate, a thing thrown. What we have at present to consider, then, is not the nature of the propelling instrument, which has already been discussed, but the adaptation to its own use of the object propelled. Does the outer taper promote that usefulness ? Any one who thinks it does is invited to note what often happens to the gut cast when the airs are even slightly unfavour- able. It does not stretch straight and fall so. Although the reel line may have gone out fairly well, the cast drops in curves, sometimes in a tangle. It acts in that vexing manner because it is too light to overcome the resistance of the atmosphere. Now, our taper, it is obvious, should, in theory, tend to put a considerable portion of the reel line, the tapered portion, at the same disadvantage. It does tend to do so. In a favourable wind it does no harm ; but in adversity of weather it FITTINGS OF THE ROD 59 is worse than being of no avail. It is a source of positive difficulty, the difficulty that is inherent in the gut itself. Who shall gainsay this ? I do not think that any one will on reflection. The experts who favour the taper do so with discrimination. While saying that it is desirable in dry-fly fishing, they admit, and indeed assert, that it is not good for the wet fly. In wet-fly fishing, they say, the " level " line, the untapered line, is better. It goes forth more nearly straight. This recognition of how the level line acts gives away the case for the tapered line. What, at this stage of our inquiry into the principles of angling, does it matter whether the fly at the end of the cast is wet or dry? That matters nothing. In either case our purpose is to throw the fly as far as necessary and to throw it straightly. Clearly, then, the line by means of which this purpose can be accomplished more surely is the better. That is the level line. The taper, on the other hand, carries less water with it than the equivalent part of the level line. It does not throw upon the water, after or before the fall of the fly or flies, such a heavy shower of spray. That is an advantage. It is an advantage, however, that can in greater measure be attained by another means. A yard of plaited gut between the reel line 60 HOW TO FISH and the cast does not carry any perceptible shower at all. With this attachment, known as " the casting line, 1 ' you have more than the incidental benefit con- ferred by the taper and do not incur the result of the taper's defect. The plaited gut need not be lighter than the reel line. Consequently, while carrying no considerable water to be thrown upon stream or lake in a shower which, being unnatural, disturbs the trout, it does not increase the tendency of the cast to be buffeted by wind and fall in a coil. The back taper is a sound device. It does lessen a little the difficulty of delivering the cast neatly. Besides, all the line behind it being comparatively thin, the reel holds more than it would hold of a level line sufficiently weighty to fit the rod. It is well to have not less than forty yards. Instead of being joined by loops, which would form a knot that might not pass easily through the rings of the rod, the reel line and the casting line are spliced under a whipping of silk thread resined and varnished. Then we come to the cast. In days of old that was made of hairs from a young horse's tail, and even now, especially in Yorkshire, there is sometimes to be met an angler who is faithful to the ancient usage. Horsehair has merits. It is thin ; it is FITTINGS OF THE ROD 61 round and smooth and slightly elastic ; and, as the average strand is long, there are not many knots on a cast of hair. We can now, however, have silkworm gut of equal fineness and greater strength, and thus hair is out of vogue. Drawn gut, which is the thinnest, is gut that has been pulled through a narrow hole in a steel plate. It has been pared in the process. It has become round, soft, and of equal weight from end to end. That is good ; but the paring has deprived it of its skin, and that is not altogether good. Skinless gut does not reflect the sunlight so brilliantly as natural gut, and thus it is less flagrant on the water ; but it is not so strong as natural gut, and is more easily frayed by coming into contact with stones or bushes. Still, there is no denying that it is often necessary. On very clear water in a dead calm it will enable you to raise trout when no success or very little would reward the best effort with undrawn gut. Besides, whilst not so strong as could be wished, it is much less weak than might be supposed. Skilfully used, it lands very large trout ; and if it is not frayed, and not damp when put away for a season, it will be found well preserved when the time for fishing comes again. Within recent years the quality of gut, drawn and undrawn, has markedly improved. Not a few anglers like to make their own casts, 62 HOW TO FISH and all have occasion now and then to mend a broken cast. It is desirable, therefore, to show the knots. Our sketches, I think, almost explain themselves. The knots are of two kinds, and in either kind the knot may be single or double. The WATER KNOT, SINGLE. single knots are unsatisfactory. When the pieces are drawn together the waste ends have either to be cut off close, in which case the knot may slip ; or little bits of the ends have to be left protruding, in which case the cast will catch many of the leaves or bits of grass that come against it in the water. Both WATER KNOT, DOUBLE. the double knots are good. In the Water Knot 1 and 2 are the main line ; the other ends are to be cut off close when the whole is pulled together. Similarly, in the Fisherman's Knot 1 and 2 are the main line ; 3 and 4, the pieces to be cut away when the gut is taut. Which is to be pre- FITTINGS OF THE ROD 63 ferred ? I myself use the Water Knot, thinking that it subjects the gut to less twisting than the other ; but the Fisherman's Knot lends itself to a good way of fixing a drop fly to the cast. A single simple knot is formed on the gut of the dropper, not more than FISHERMAN'S KNOT, SINGLE. three inches from the hook ; the gut of the dropper is passed between the strands of the main line ; when the cast knot is drawn nearly taut the dropper is pulled down until the little knot on it is in contact with the cast ; then, all having been made taut, the dropper is firmly jammed. 3 FISHERMAN S KNOT, DOUBLE. I do not myself use this method of putting on a dropper. That is because the Water Knot, which I like better than the Fisherman's, does not readily admit of it, and because to unloose the Fisherman's Knot in order to let in a fresh dropper would be to fray the gut. 64 HOW TO FISH There are other methods of attaching a dropper. You may fix it, above a knot on the cast, by means of a loop on the dropper gut. This serves well when the water is rough or discoloured ; but when the water is clear and quiet the loop, howsoever small, is clumsy. You may mount the dropper by tying the gut round the cast by a single knot, passing the gut once round the cast, putting the fly through the loop of its own gut, and pulling taut. Again : you may cut the cast at the place where a dropper has to be put, and make the gut of the dropper, short of the point from which it has to dangle, part of the cast itself. This is the neatest of the attachments, and if the gut of the cast and that of the dropper are of the same thickness and strength it is the best. Dropper flies should not hang more than three inches from the cast. Indeed, it is well as a rule that they should be even less than that. The longer the gut by which a fly is attached, the more likely is it to become entangled with the cast. The shorter the attaching gut, the better the fly keeps away from the cast. Lest this should seem a reason for having the attachment as short as possible, it should be mentioned that, though there always is a risk of entanglement, often, especially in quiet water, a FITTINGS OF THE ROD 65 three -inch dropper really does extend itself full- A DROPPER ATTACHMENT. (Engraved from a model made by the Author.) length from the cast ; and the farther the fly is from 5 66 HOW TO FISH the cast the more probable is it that a trout will rise. In common, I daresay, with many another angler, I have ineffectually spent much thought in endeavour to devise some means by which the droppers should always be at right angles to the cast. The end fly, if dressed on gut, is tied on by the Water Knot or the Fisherman's Knot ; if it is an ATTACHING AN EYED-FLY. (Engraved from Author's model. ) eyed hook, the method of attaching it is as shown in our sketch. As in the case of reel lines, some casts are tapered, some doubly tapered, and some level. The double taper gives no advantage, and is open to the ob- jection that a break is usually near the top, in which case the whole cast is lost. The level cast, if of fine gut, is easily put out of proper action by unfavourable weather. The cast of single taper is not so sensitive. It can be made to fall fairly well even if it has to be driven against or across a slight breeze. At first sight this fact may seem to be incompatible with our reasoning about a taper on the reel line; but FITTINGS OF THE ROD 67 that is not the case. It is not because of any virtue inherent in its form that the tapered cast, in stress of weather, behaves better than the level cast. That is due simply to part of the tapered cast having more weight than any part of the level cast. In other words, if the whole of the level cast were as heavy as the thickest strand in the tapered cast, the level cast would act just as well, and probably a little better. If you are using only one fly, the tapered cast is the better. Two or three strands at the end are fine enough to be as little alarming to the trout as gut can be, and, besides helping against wind, the upper parts, being stouter than a level cast suitable for the same purpose, give you a sense of security. The tapered cast is good also, amid certain condi- tions, if you are using two flies or three. On water which is broken by its own impetus or roughened by wind very thin gut is not necessary, and sometimes the trout will rush at the droppers, hanging from comparatively thick gut, as eagerly as at the end fly, on the thinnest. Is there, then, no occasion for a level cast ? Yes : there is. On a lake, the waters of which are nearly always clear, a level cast, the wind from behind the boat helping your flies out, is to be preferred. The thinner the gut, the greater your chance of rises. For the same reason, when two or three flies are in use, the level cast is the 68 HOW TO FISH more appropriate on a stream when the wind is fair and the water clear or calm. Now our rod is up, and trimly rigged : ready. How are we to achieve with efficiency the throwing of the fly or the flies ? Sir Herbert Maxwell, honest man, frankly admits that he cannot tell how it is done. He is one of the most accomplished masters of the art ; yet he cannot explain. I heard a reminiscent gillie become rhapsodical over the manner in which Sir Herbert casts with amazing accuracy to bewildering distances. What was the knack ? " De^il only knows," said the admiring Highlander, reverently. That, in effect, is the master's own answer. "There is, indeed,"" he writes, "but one plain course to be taken by him who would learn the Spey cast, or the figure-of-eight switch, or the overhead cast, or the under-handed cast. Let him put himself humbly in the hands of a good fisherman who is willing to communicate the beautiful art. It is only in that way that he will learn of how much good greenheart and well-dressed silk line are capable." The learning, he adds, will be inseparable from suffering. " You watch your mentor delivering his cast ; the long serpentine curve straightens over the water ; a little tilt of the butt, and the cast, though the lightest part of the FITTINGS OF THE ROD 69 projectile, falls not first, but farthest ; nothing can be more graceful and at the same time appear so easy." You take the rod and are a sedulous ape. " Your preceptor's movements were noiseless : how is it that when you imitate them the rod makes a loud ' swoosh ' through the air ? How is it that, instead of flying out far and fair, the line either falls on the water in what a good old gillie of mine used to call a ' burble, 1 or, at most, scrambles out in a wriggling, uncertain manner, depositing the fly half-a-dozen yards from the spot aimed at ? " Sir Herbert thinks it is because, instead of casting with the upmost part of the rod, you have been casting from the butt. You ask, How are you to help that when it is the butt you grasp ? " Well, I am sure I can't tell you," he says; "and, if I could, it would not be in- telligible." Coming from one who is highly skilled with the pen as well as with the rod, these are sub- duing words. Still, one may indulge in a modest reflection on the tantalising topic. Is Sir Herbert Maxwell right in saying that we have blundered through casting from the butt? One wonders ; and with reflection the wonder grad- ually grows into certitude that he is not quite right. Having some good stories to tell in the chapter from which I have quoted, perhaps he was a little impatient in his technical discourse. If he 70 HOW TO FISH had not been so, he would have realised that the pupil's fault was not exactly what it seemed to be. It was not from the butt that the pupil cast. It was from the whole rod. With wide-sweeping arm, he waved it awkwardly behind him, and then flung both, arm and rod, wildly forth towards the water. That is what every one seems to do in the first attempt at throwing a fly. The rod is handled as if it were a whip with which the driver of a dog-cart wished to give the horse a gentle touch. The driver's arm, the shaft of the whip, and the cord go loosely together; and they have not far to go. That is not how a fishing-rod should be used. We are now thinking of a one-hand trout-rod. That and a salmon -rod work on the same principles; but, especially as we have been speaking of a whip, the dynamics of the question are best to be studied in the trout-rod. Besides this, it is to be assumed that the trout-rod is a good one. There are many rods with which even Sir Herbert Maxwell could not throw a fly satisfactorily if he had not the wind behind him. These are the very " whippy " implements almost always preferred by those who do not know much about fishing. The proper rod, though resilient, is not flabby. It is like a blade of well-tempered steel, capable of bending, but straight when in repose. Its flexibility, its spring, is not in the upper half FITTINGS OF THE ROD 71 only. It begins just above the reel, where your hand is ; and it continues increasingly but equably to the top. If the rod were rigid all through you could not throw a fly. You could not even, I think, throw the line. It is through the resilience of the weapon that the impulse is conveyed. At what point, then, is the resilience, the spring, to be set in motion? Where it begins, of course; which is in the butt, just above the hand. To throw a fly, that is to say, it is necessary to cast from the butt. It is from the butt, after hand and arm, that the primary impulse must proceed. Throwing a fly is an act of feeling, or of instinct, rather than of reason ; yet perhaps it is possible by a careful effort, step by step, in simple sentences, to put the action into words. Indeed, as a good rod is made not at random but on scientific principles, this must be possible. We have only to perceive how the rod has acted when the fly falls lightly where it was meant to fall. Well, then, it has been tightly gripped. The novice in the mind's eye of Sir Herbert Maxwell did not grip it tightly. He had a loose hold. He worked much with his arm. He did not use his wrist. The butt, being less flexible than the middle and upper pieces, was simply moved forward. It did not act. To act, it has to spring. When it does spring, force goes 72 HOW TO FISH through it into the upper pieces of the rod, adding to the forces of which these are themselves the holders. On second thoughts, then, Sir Herbert will admit that it is from the butt we must cast. The top-piece is only the last agent in transmission of force to the projectile. It generates a force of its own, to be sure ; but that force is much less than that which springs from the butt. How, then, is one to liberate what may be called the initial force ? We have spoken of a tight grip, and that is obviously necessary ; but it is not all. You must as you cast feel the whole rod alive and springing. That this may be, you must, besides gripping tightly, direct the action of the rod from within a very small area. The arm must not move as if you were bowling at cricket or casting a stone from a sling. It has to move a little ; but it must be moved only so far as is necessary to give free play to the wrist. It is the wrist that measures the force required to send a fly to any particular spot It is through the wrist that the initial energy is sent. To the wrist the eye communicates its aim. The wrist is the lever by which the resilience of the rod is freed and checked. Let us cast with the butt, then, and from the wrist ; and hope that, after all, we may have the benediction of Sir Herbert Maxwell. CHAPTER IV ON THE WAY TO THE STREAM Sport as Viewed by a Great Thinker His Problem of Con- science His Solution Flaws in his Philosophy An Attempt at Reconstruction. THE pursuit of game fish, a sport peculiarly engag- ing to men of intellectual note, has stirred some of these to interesting exercises of conscience. For example, Mr. Herbert Spencer, at the height of his world- wide fame, was always ready to converse on angling. His liking for the craft, both as a pastime and as a topic, was so astonishing to him- self that he examined it analytically. He sought to know why a man who could not think of stalking the red deer permitted himself to catch the trout. The answer at which he arrived was to the effect that sports are reprehensible, or reprehended, in proportion to the size of the quarries. The larger the creature you pursue, the worse your 73 74 HOW TO FISH conduct is, or seems to be. Thus, to kill a red deer is, or seems to be, the most cruel act of sport possible in this country. Being very large, the deer is capable, in its terror and pain, of bringing to your mind a sense of similar suffering within yourself. A trout being a much smaller creature, and not in structure so like a human being, you can fish without undergoing this torture. Indeed, a trout being in no noticeable relation, as regards size, to yourself, and bearing no outward sign of having similar sensibilities, you can be an angler with a conscience undisturbed. That is to say, your ethics are ulti- mately regard for your nerves. To shoot a stag would be to injure your own sensibilities, and that injury, frequently repeated, would render you callous, morally degenerate ; therefore, you are virtuous in being opposed to deer-stalking. It may be that you inflict pain when you catch a trout ; but the pain is not obvious ; therefore, as your action is not hurtful to your character, you do not lose in virtue by being an angler. Let us, on our walk to the trout-stream, spend a few minutes in thinking about what Mr. Spencer said. There is truth in his doctrine. In as far as they are an expression of self-understanding, ethics must be a reflection of self-regarding instincts, from ON THE WAY TO THE STREAM 75 which that understanding proceeds. If we are obliged to conclude that sympathy for any creature in suffering is ultimately sorrow for oneself, oneself imagined in the other's plight, we must e'en swallow the humiliating thought. The proposition, however, needs to be scrutinised. Is self-understanding in- variably the sole criterion in ethics ? Did Mr. Spencer do justice to himself in believing that he differed from that other fellow only inasmuch as his reflex suffering when he caught a trout was naught when compared with the other fellow's suffering when he shot a stag? Did he do justice to the other fellow in assuming him, as deer- stalker, to be morally degenerate, a person of seared sensibilities ? There is reason for thinking that he was not quite right in either case. The nature of man is much less simple than the exigencies of the synthesis which Mr. Spencer spent his life in formulating obliged him occasionally to suppose. Almost any human act that is more than involuntary or instinctive is the outcome of forces too complex to be stated off-hand. We have admitted that ethics must be a reflec- tion of self-regarding instincts. That they must be so is evident on consideration that it is only through these instincts, through self-consciousness, 76 HOW TO FISH that one can begin to realise one's duty towards sentient beings. Ethics, however, may be some- thing more. The fact that they hold in solution our self -regarding instincts does not imply that they hold nothing else. They do hold something else. As we shall soon perceive, they hold reason. That is a faculty called into exercise by the pressure of external circumstances upon the mind. If there were no external circum- stances there would be no need for reason ; indeed, reason, as we understand it, would be impossible. Now, what is the nature of the external circum- stances, the things with which man is constantly in contact, upon which he has frequently to ponder ? Are they all of them such as have counterparts in man's mind ? It is evident that they are not. If they were, there would be no permanent mystery in the universe; the human mind, interpreting all things by the clues to be found within itself, would understand the universe completely. Consider this in connexion with our specific sub- ject. A man finds himself in a region where red deer or trout abound. In what relations with the creatures ought he to stand? According to Mr. Spencer, this is a simple problem. The key to it is in the man's own mind. To be freed from all perplexity, the man has but to hearken in obedience ON THE WAY TO THE STREAM 77 to the promptings of his self -regarding instincts. He is at liberty to pursue and kill the trout, because the trout are not in the least like himself, physically, and therefore do not in their struggles convey any conception of what he himself would feel if he were being hunted ; but he is not equally at liberty to pursue and kill the deer, because that animal, in its anatomy, does bear a resemblance to him- self, and therefore is capable in its death-struggles of producing within him painful and injurious emotions. There you have ethics according to the doctrine of Evolution. Fortunately for man's happiness, it is demonstrable, I think, that, howsoever the doctrine may fare in other applications, it is not convincing in connexion with the subject now in hand. It holds error of two kinds. In the first place, it is partial in its review of our self-regarding instincts. What these are is not completely stated when you name the self-protective instincts that are common to the man and to the deer. The man has self-regarding instincts in which the deer does not share. He likes flesh to eat, and the deer does not. He has the instinct of the chase, and the deer has not. He has, that is to say, two self-regarding instincts in which he is wholly different 78 HOW TO FISH from the deer. That being so, Mr. Spencer erred when he supposed that he had formulated an ethic of sport based upon the self-regarding instincts of man. Powerful instincts in that class were omitted from his review. In the second place, Mr. Spencer's doctrine is partial in respect that it would not have afforded a full explanation even if his survey of man's self- regarding instincts had been complete. To consult those instincts exclusively, and to obey their prompt- ing, is to have sympathy, and to act upon it. The sympathy is none the less valuable to other creatures because it springs from knowledge of ourselves and a desire not to injure ourselves in our own esteem. This is evident on consideration that knowledge of ourselves is the only source of sympathy, or even of intelligent understanding. This having been admitted, however, we are obliged to perceive that there are many indisputably ethical decisions in which more than sympathy, the reflection of certain self-regarding instincts, is involved. Of the func- tion of the additional force, which is reason, Mr. Spencer himself gave many instances. With un- exampled cogency, he maintained that whenever the State acted towards the people on an impulse of sympathy unchecked by reason the results were evil even for those whom the enactments were ON THE WAY TO THE STREAM 79 designed to benefit. He sought to show that it was less bad that women and children, the poor and the weak, should be exploited by capitalists than that they should be deprived of liberty to work where they pleased, as many hours a day as they pleased, and for whatever pittances sufficed to maintain them. His contention was that any social action based upon unreasoned sympathy produced evils worse than those which it was meant to cure. Was not this an assertion that the prompting of certain self - regarding instincts is not in itself a sufficient guidance as to our conduct towards others ? It was ; and it is amazing that a thinker so methodical overlooked the bearing of the asser- tion upon the problem of the ethics of sport. The self-regarding instincts, which alone do not provide a canon of judgment as to man's relations with his own kind, are still more manifestly in- sufficient as a source of guidance about his relations with creatures of other kinds. Reason, without which sympathy is certain to produce evils in civilisa- tion, is still more urgently needed in the wilds. In respect to human society we do have in our minds the keys, provided by the self-regarding instincts, which in certain cases are self-suspecting instincts, to many problems ; that is because even the strongest and most self -control led amongst us is capable of 80 HOW TO FISH understanding the frailties and the passions of the weak. In that relation we reason from our own instincts to the instincts of others. As touching the creatures of the waters and the wilds our self-regard- ing instincts provide keys to the elementary problem only. They tell us that in taking life we are to be as sparing as possible in the infliction of pain. In most sports that principle is recognised and respected. It could easily be shown that the sportsman's methods of taking life are the least painful. Think of the slaughter-house and the axe in contrast with the forest and the rifle, of the strangled salmon slowly dying in sea nets in contrast with a fish on an angler's line ; and the truth of our statement will be ex- emplified. Beyond bidding us be merciful in the wilds and on the waters the prompting of the self- regarding instincts contributes nothing to ethics. In the wilds and on the waters, then, we do indeed have external circumstances invoking reason, that faculty without which sympathy, even among human beings, is prone to be worse than being of no avail. Imagine yourself a dweller in a mountainous region. There are deer on the hills. As we are discussing ethics, which is a science applicable to all mankind, we must assume that there are deer on your neighbours 1 lands, and that they also are con- fronted by the philosophical problem. The deer ON THE WAY TO THE STREAM 81 may not be many; but if they are not interfered with they will become so. What will happen ? The deer will consume so much grass and heather that other animals, sheep among them, will be starved. In winter they will come down into the valleys and rob the stackyards. By and by, when they realise that men are not enemies, they will devour the cereals of the fields in spring and summer. Before very many years are over they will have multiplied so greatly as to be more than the land can pro- vide with sufficient food. The forests, in which at present there are a few fights every autumn, will resound with the roar of battle. The red deer, now a magnificent creature, will gradually decline until he is no more like himself as we know him than the long, black, lanky fish of some lonely tarn, into which an angler's line is hardly ever cast, is like the plump, bright brown - trout of the Itchen. His species, that is to say, will become degenerate. These, then, are the elements of your problem, your data of ethics. What are you to do ? Shall you find an answer by consulting the self-regarding instincts ? In a certain measure you will. Regard for your- self will suggest putting a limit to the depredations of the deer, That regard you will weigh against 82 HOW TO FISH the instinct which makes you reluctant to inflict pain and death ; and you will decide that pain and death to some of the deer, with some reflex suffering to yourself, is the less objectionable alternative. Even so, you will have not treated your problem exhaustively. Its most interesting aspects are still unconsidered. That which presses for your attention is the subtle arrangement called the Balance of Nature. Being of an observant habit, you know that the balance is sometimes upset, as it has been in Australia, where rabbits are a plague, at the cost of misfortune. You know, also, though Mr. Spencer, apparently, often forgot, that man himself is one of the forces in the balance of nature. Thus you have external circumstances, things seen or perceived, facts in the problem of how you ought to act, pressing upon your mind. They are wholly independent of that class of self- regarding instincts, giving rise to selfish pity, which Mr. Spencer treated as being the sufficient criterion in ethics. They are of those external pressures upon us which are the cause and the occasion of reason. They are incidents in the wonder of the world. Their explanation by ourselves, the judgments to which they impel us, cannot be intuitive. They are facts for which there are no analogies native to the ON THE WAY TO THE STREAM 83 mind of man. The self-regarding instincts to which Mr. Spencer bade us appeal when in doubt as to the ethics of sport have nothing to say about them. Those instincts and these facts are out of touch. Reason in judicial capacity, the mind of man judging about things of which its understanding is derived not through intuition but through experience, has to intervene. Its judgment is not to be biassed by the self-regarding instincts that issue in selfish pity. Ethics would be manifestly immoral, a vindication of the shirking of responsibility, if reason, the mind of man impinged upon by circumstance, posed by the riddle of the universe, left itself under such a thrall. That is because, although man is himself one of the forces in nature, and presumably, in a state of nature, an exact contribution to the perfect balance, he is also, as far as we can see, in command of many other animal forces, and responsible for their excess or their deficiency. Man has jurisdiction over the beasts, the birds, and the fishes. His is not, it is true, the ultimate jurisdiction. There is a court above, Nature, which will punish any false finding at which he may arrive. Still, there he is, a judge, and charged to judge in the light not only of those laws of Nature which are instinctive, and therefore, as Mr. Spencer has shown, a cause of selfishness, but 84 HOW TO FISH also of those laws of Nature which he knows through observation, laws which, affecting him from outside himself, force him to be something more than an egoist, his ethics to be determined by something more than emotional self-interests. To discover a credible ethic of sport, then, we have to go through a process of reflection more complex than that which sufficed for Mr. Spencer. Some of the data that bear upon the subject escaped his notice. We have seen what the complete data are. They are drawn from two sources. There is, on the one hand, man's knowledge of his own nature ; on the other, there is man's estimate of external nature. The self-knowledge reveals an impulse towards sport and an aversion from it. The aversion, dis- like of reflected pain, is incidental, fleeting; the impulse, the instinct of the chase, is constant, and is encouraged by the permanent need to gain food either for oneself or for others. It is, therefore, the impulse that prevails. The impulse is modified by the aversion no more than to the extent that we are obliged to pursue and capture in the seemliest possible manner. Man's estimate of external nature justifies the conclusion to which he is impelled by study of himself and his needs or the needs of his own kind. ON THE WAY TO THE STREAM 85 In the first place, the deer and the trout minister to those needs, and that fact justifies taking them. In the second place, deer and trout, in common with other wild creatures, are actually preserved and strengthened, as species, by being the objects of sport ; and that fact, human needs again considered, justifies taking them. In the third place, try as he may, man cannot divest himself of a feeling that, though himself a force in nature, and perhaps un- seeing in that capacity, he is charged with dominion over the fish, the birds, and the beasts, and that it is his duty to see that these live and flourish in the proportions that Nature designs. As a sportsman he does his utmost to fulfil that obliga- tion. Thus, knowledge from either source, intuition or experience, points to the same solution of the problem. It is that neither of the sports we have been considering is in violation of ethics. This conclusion, sufficient in itself, is strengthened by a thought which, though so little open to analysis that not even Mr. Spencer endeavoured to dissect it, is strangely compelling. Man himself, as has been noted, is one of the forces of Nature. Obedience to his instincts, as well as the exercise of his intellect, must be essential in Nature's plan. Clearly, 86 HOW TO FISH then, the instinct of the chase being general in his kind, man, it may be held, is not only allowed by Ethics, but also obliged, to give the instinct play. Startling as it may be at present, that idea will, I think, have incidentally become a conviction when our subject has completely unfolded itself. CHAPTER V THE CAST OF FLIES Unthinking 1 Submission to Authority "The Practical Ang- ler's" Oversight Balance in the Air Weight of Flies A Model Selection Eyed Hooks or Hooks Whipped on Gut ? Occasions for Eyed Hooks Occasions for the Others Are Droppers Permissible? The Arguments Against them Objections shown to be Unsound An Accidental Discovery The Principle of Cross Lines and the Otter Taboos in Angling One of them Refuted Days of Old and These Times Chalk-Streams and Other Streams The Three-flies Cast Justified. Now, not a moment too soon, we have reached the stream. Are we to be at peace with all men, having occasion to call in question the thoughts of none ? Is fishing a simpler subject than philosophy ? For two or three seasons, in the early stages of your practical acquaintance with it, you will, especially if you catch a good many trout, believe it to be so ; but by and by, if you are alert, you will have misgivings. The lore of the craft is extra- 87 88 HOW TO FISH ordinarily well stocked with maxims. Some of these are many generations old ; others, equally persuasive, are comparatively new. It would seem that anglers are a peculiarly trusting and uncritical class. Their respect for precedent is so great that they hardly ever think of calling in question any of the tenets they hear from the lips or read from the pens of experienced men. Complete submission to the authority of the fathers, ancient or modern, is the rule of their placid minds in the hours that are spent on the water. This modest obedience is natural and becoming in early days ; but, unless contentment is always to wait upon little sport, it cannot be long maintained. The important con- siderations in fishing are of such wide variety, and in many cases so minute, so easily overlooked, that he who would be moderately successful must observe and think for himself. Even before our line is wet we discover an error of tradition. Here is a passage from the famous book of Mr. W. C. Stewart. He is telling how to make a cast of flies. " The distance between the flies should be from twenty inches to two feet. If it is greater, in rough water the angler may pass over a trout without its seeing any of them, and there is nothing in the sight of two flies at a time calculated to alarm a trout." That is a strange proposition. THE CAST OF FLIES 89 It is made on the assumption that all the trout in the stream are lying within the lines formed by one or other of the pairs of flies. Indeed, Mr. Stewart actually seems to take it for granted that a fish is lying exactly midway between one fly and another, and that if the distance between the flies is greater than two feet both flies will pass unseen. This is a complex error. In the first place, a trout poised exactly midway between the flies could easily see both if they were a good deal more than two feet apart. Of course, at certain times of the year, those when the fish are well fed and flies are plentiful, he might not be disposed to go out of his way for the sake of either ; but that is another question. He would certainly see them both, and if one were particularly attractive he would probably turn and rise. Besides, as has been hinted, the trout's position is not at all likely to be exactly midway between either pair. The chances are that he will be nearer one fly than the other ; it is just as likely as not that he will be beyond the end fly or on the near side of the upmost one. We must remember that Mr. Stewart is not casting where the fish can be seen individually. He is casting on water that is rough and not very shallow, where the flies are thrown more or less at random. What, then, does he gain by having his flies in any par- 90 HOW TO FISH ticular positions on the cast ? It is clear that he gains nothing. He is just as likely to come over a trout by having his flies three or four feet apart as he is by having them only from twenty inches to two feet. The flies, I think, should be three feet apart. Placed thus, they cover a good deal of water, and, as we shall see, give the cast, . which is about nine feet, the proper balance. Apart from this we are, as regards the cast, almost disciples of Mr. Stewart. Why did he mount only three flies, or, at the most, four, upon his cast ? If he wished to be sure of making: an O offering to every fish within a reasonable radius, why did he not have a fly dangling at every foot of his three yards of gut ? The reason, though he does not mention it, is obvious. A cast of more than three flies is not easy to manage. I have made experiments in this matter, and the results are interesting. A cast of three flies goes out upon the water beautifully ; but a cast of four, such as the Lochleven one shown in our engraving, is clumsy. It wobbles in the air, and, unless there be a strong wind from behind, its fall upon the water is ungainly. In this there is some principle which a man of exact science could doubtless state and explain. A boy is conscious of the principle when he flies a kite. The kite can carry, and is often the better for, a weight THE CAST OF FLIES 91 at the end of her tail ; she can even, if the wind is fair, do with another in the middle. A third weight will impair the gracefulness of her flight. That is FAMILIAR ON LOCHLEVEN. (Engraved from a photograph by Mr. P. D. Malloch.) not because it is a weight; it is because of its position. The extra weight might easily be borne at the right place, which is the end of the tail ; but the kite resents it in the wrong place, and so does the tail itself. Similarly, there is no room for more 92 HOW TO FISH than three flies on a cast. Howsoever long the cast may be, there is no right place for a fourth. That is not the only conclusion to be drawn from experi- ment. A cast of three flies works much more sweetly than a cast of two flies or of one fly. It has in the air a pleasant balance which cannot be attri- buted to either of the others. Either of these will sometimes fall lightly, and as you wish ; but, except in a moment of negligence on your part, or of adverse wind, the cast of three flies will always do so. Mr. R. B. Marston is wiser than perhaps he realises in that he sometimes uses three lures even when in dry-fly mood. Each of his three flies falls more daintily than the orthodox single fly would fall. How is this ? Again our man of exact science would be the best witness ; but a suggestion may be ventured. Most of us get our casts ready-made, instead of making them ourselves ; and, as we found in last chapter, they are tapered. They are pretty stout at the upper end, and gradually attenuate. In making them thus the professional craftsman goes upon the feeling that a tapered cast is more likely than another to stretch straight in its flight through the air and fall evenly upon the water. Is it not conceivable that a single fly fixed to the end of the cast, or, indeed, to any part of it other than the THE CAST OF FLIES 93 very top, would impede the action which the taper is designed to facilitate ? Of course it is. The fly has weight, which, though not much, is at least equal to the difference between the weight of the end strand of gut and that of the two or three strands im- mediately above it ; and it has bulk, which presents resistance to the air through which the cast is pro- jected. One can perceive, then, that the single fly on a cast undoes, or at least partly undoes, the purpose of the taper. Two other flies, properly placed, correct the disturbance by equalising it. The proper places on a nine-foot cast are, I think, three feet above the end fly and three feet below the reel line or the plaited gut. In these positions the flies tend to restore the balance inherent in the taper. If they are of the same size, however, they do not restore it completely. A fly near the top of the cast, where the gut is comparatively thick and heavy, has not so much influence in passing through the air as a fly of the same size at the end of the cast, where the gut is thin and very light ; even the middle fly, though not in the same measure, is overweighted by the end one. That being so, it is well that the flies should be of three sizes. The smallest should be on the end ; the second-smallest on the middle ; the largest above. By this means one acts according to the design that is both implicit and expressed in the tapered 94 HOW TO FISH gut. It will be said, by some one in haste, that, inasmuch as the size of a fly is to be determined not A CAST OF FLIES IN GRADED SIZES. (Engraved from a photograph by Mr. P. D. Malloch.) by the mechanical necessities of the tackle- maker but by the size of the insect to be imitated, this is an empirical arrangement. The alarm is needless. THE CAST OF FLIES 95 It is not suggested that the same fly should be dressed and used in three different sizes, which would be unnatural and unscientific ; but what would be wrong with a cast having on the end a Gravel Bed, on the middle a Grannom, and towards the top a March Brown ? These, in the order named, will give the gradation which the taper calls for. They are in season simultaneously. A similar series, graded and seasonable, can be found at any time. Whether should the flies be eyed or dressed on gut ? That might be deemed an unimportant question ; but there are some anglers who do not think it so. It has been much debated in the journals of sport; many a time it has stirred private circles to evil temper ; a volume has been published in order to show not only that eyed flies are prefer- able, but also that the part of the steel containing the eye, instead of being turned up, should be turned down. The Spectator has been agitated over the question. " Mr Hodgson, even in running water, we gather,' 1 '' that journal has said, " fishes with two or three flies to his cast, and (O horror !) he appears to fish with flies dressed on gut. We implore Mr. Hodgson to try eyed hooks, and feel sure he will . . . support the proposition that no invention of modern days . . . has done so much for human 96 HOW TO FISH happiness and comfort as the discovery of eyed hooks for trout-fishing of every sort." I have tried them often. One of their merits is that they enable you to be economical. Usually the gut at the head of a hook of the other kind is worn and dangerously weak before the fly itself is wasted, and when that is so you have to sacrifice the fly. An eyed-hook fly, in the same peril, can be taken off and kept or there and then made taut again. Then, if you are fishing with a single fly, you can, if you wish, exchange it for another without lengthening the cast or appreciably shortening it ; if you were using flies of the other kind, you would either have to add about a foot to the cast or be obliged to cut off a foot to make room for the new link. The behaviour of the fly itself is a much more important consideration. Perhaps because the steel moves in the loop of gut as the fly is thrown, the eyed hook does not become weak at the head so soon as the other, which, indeed, if you are habitually inexpert in handling the rod, or momentarily for- getful, may be cracked oft' at a single cast. In that respect the eyed hook adds much to your ease of mind. You can fish with one for hours without looking to see whether the gut is weakened. That is all, I think, that can be said in favour of THE CAST OF FLIES 97 the eyed hook for trout-fishing. It is a good deal, to be sure, and often I use an eyed fly at the end of the cast ; but, as The Spectator would perceive if he could get rid of his horror at the idea of two or three flies in ply at once, it is not all one has to think of. How are you to attach eyed hooks as droppers ? You could do so once easily enough; but if you changed a dropper fly for another two or three times, the bit of gut hanging from the cast would become too short. It would become too short, that is to say, if it had not been too long to begin with. Of course, you can, if you like, have in your book or case eyed flies attached to links of gut, and thus be able to have a new dropper fixed in the ordinary way ; but that is an unnecessary provision. When you hear a crack in the air behind you, discomfiting sound, it is not a dropper that has gone wrong. It is the end fly. Only that fly cracks. The droppers endure much longer. Manifestly, then, eyed hooks as droppers are not preferable unless it can be shown that their action in the water is better than that of flies dressed on gut. Is it better ? Some authorities think so. Their belief is that the eyed fly is less severely fettered than the other, and that it has greater freedom of motion in the water. You will understand this 7 98 HOW TO FISH idea when you look at an eyed fly looped on a strand of gut and at an uneyed fly whipped on. While the pieces of gut are dry, both flies, it may be, will be in the same position, the straight parts of the steels being, as you hold them before you, in line with the links of gut; but when the two have been in water for a little the eyed fly will droop, tail downwards, from the gut, and the other will still be straight. There is, consequently, a notion that the eyed fly must make a finer appearance on the stream. Having greater scope for movement, some think, it must look more natural than the other, yielding more to currents in the water, and, if it floats, to currents in the atmosphere. After much experiment, I believe this notion to be well founded. An eyed fly does have greater freedom than a fly dressed on gut. When used dry it is fair to see on the stream. Wings up, down it comes bobbing and trembling, responsive to every movement in the water or above, even, apparently, to the gentlest. Its fixture to the gut seems to hamper it not at all. A floating fly dressed on gut does not act so prettily. There is about it some- thing of the aspect of a captive balloon. Now it is unnaturally still ; anon it tugs ; it is lacking in delicacy of motion ; beyond a doubt, it looks like a hampered insect. THE CAST OF FLIES 99 When one wishes a fly to float, then, it is an eyed fly one should use. When one does not mind if the lure dips a little, the eyed fly is not obviously preferable. I daresay that, if it has fair play, it is not less likely than the other to attract a trout ; but it is not, I think, more so. Besides, as a dropper intended to dip into the water, it is at a disad- vantage when compared with a fly dressed on gut. Its delightful freedom of action at the end of the cast becomes disagreeable wobbliness when the fly is a dropper. A fly dressed on gut is apt to become entangled with the cast, instead of hanging clear ; but an eyed fly is apter to do so, and its entangle- ment is usually more complicated. For droppers, therefore, flies dressed on gut are to be preferred. It will not have escaped notice that we have been writing just as if there were no cause for horror at the bare idea of droppers. Well, I do not think that there is any cause. Nature does not always offer the trout only flies of one kind at a time. Often she offers flies of many kinds. Why, then, should we restrict ourselves to one fly ? The anglers upon whose authority the restriction is urged are not unanimous as to the reason. Some of them say that a cast of three flies is clumsy, so clumsy that, instead of attracting the trout, it scares them. Others say that it enables you to catch many 100 HOW TO FISH trout in a day, so many that, if other persons fish as you do, the stock will be unduly reduced. It is needless to dwell on the fact that these theories cannot both be right. Is either of them right ? I do not think so. The supposition that a cast of three flies is clumsier than a cast of one fly, already shown to be contrary to the science of the subject, is disproved by the experience of all who, on any stream or lake in the world, have tried both ways. If the three flies are reasonable in size, in shape, and in hues, and delicately plied, the trout shows no alarm at their coming towards him simultaneously. Far from being put about, sometimes, if the fly that most takes his fancy at the moment is not the one nearest him, he will move from his hover to rise at it This is what must be happening when fish after fish takes a particular fly and the other flies are ignored. Often these occasions are fraught with wonder, delight, and instruction. A good many are in recollection. Two will suffice to point a moral. The first was on Ballo Loch in July. There I was the guest of Mr. W. D. Yool. His son, about twelve years of age, was given a rod ; he had himself made up a cast. The only notable thing about the equipment was a fly with brown wings and a large THE CAST OF FLIES 101 body of blue fluff. It hung heavily from the gut, between the end fly and the other, and seemed ridiculous. Nevertheless, it turned out to be the fly of the day. The lad was inexpert ; but practically every time the cast, helped by the breeze, fell fairly on the water, a trout rushed at the strange lure. In most cases the fish was missed, or lost in the playing; but the young angler had a round dozen to his credit before the fly, the only one of its kind aboard, parted from the gut. On the other occasion, again in July, I had been fishing on a lake for about two hours, and had caught nothing. I had tried a good many flies ; but none of them was of the slightest avail. The insects about were few ; the trout were not rising ; perhaps thunder was impending. Still, the sky was bright, and the wind was steady, and this was a fine bay into which the boat was drifting. Before rowing back to the pier, I would try one other cast. Within three hours the creel was crammed. The middle fly on the fresh cast was a Red Palmer, and that was what the trout had been waiting for. Although, until after sundown, the rises at real flies were extremely few, it seemed that no trout over which the Red Palmer fell was inclined to resist the temptation. These are incidents which every angler of experi- 102 HOW TO FISH ence will be able to cap. They justify the use of three flies at a time. If you deny yourself that resource, you may, after toiling all day, go home with creel empty and mind depressed for no other reason than that you have not chanced upon the proper lure. I do not say that for every day of the season there is a fly that must succeed. As will be shown in another chapter, there are times during which the trout cannot be moved to rise by any means. I do say, however, that for many a day which seems hopeless your book or box does hold the appropriate fly. How are you to recognise it ? Precisians of the sport Avill tell you to look at the insects on the water, and choose an effigy of the insect that is commonest. That course will lead you aright as a rule ; but it will not always. On many a day, especially during the height of summer, there are myriads of small flies on the water, and not a trout-rise to be seen ; on a day now and then, at any time of the season, there are neither flies nor rises. It is obvious that on such occasions you must, if you would give yourself a chance of sport, take measures apart from the teaching of the precisian. You must experiment. You must try fly after fly until you find the right one. In order that this task may be simplified, what may be called an THE CAST OF FLIES 103 entomological calendar will be given in this volume. The names of the flies will be tabulated under those of the months in which the insects appear upon the waters. Even so, the range of choice is so wide that a day can be easily frittered away in failure by giving a fair trial to one fly at a time. Trying three flies at a time will multiply by three your chance of coming quickly upon the fitting lure. That, as has been indicated, is sometimes a fly in imitation of an insect that should be on the water but is not. Although the insect is not on the water, it may be in the water. This very important probability will be dealt with in another chapter. A cast of three flies confers an advantage which I discovered by accident. In front of a bush on the other side of a pool deepened by a weir, about half a dozen good trout were rising greedily. My flies had fallen over them, time after time, for a few minutes ; but always they had passed down unregarded. Then a needlessly vigorous toss sent them a little too far. The end fly was caught in the bush. I pulled gently; it did not come away. Then I tugged gently ; and as I tugged the other flies bobbed upon the water. Thereby they acquired a marvellous attractiveness. Trout came at them, splashing. At first it seemed that they did not really wish the flies. Their action, I thought, denoted anger rather 104 HOW TO FISH than appetite. It was not the gentle and deliberate movement with which they had been taking the insects floating down. It was violent, a rush, as if the fish were enraged. The flies kept bobbing. One moment they touched the water ; the next they were dangling two or three inches above. It seemed to be when in the air that they intrigued the trout. Immediately after one pair of fish had leapt and missed and vanished in a splash, another pair re- peated the performance. This was not quite canny. Indeed, it was rather alarming. By and by, within two minutes I daresay, though the time seemed much longer, the excitement, common to the trout and me, subsided. A plump pounder so far forgot himself in his wrath, if greed was not his impulse, as to take the middle fly down with him in a somer- sault, tore the end fly from the twig, and soon, by dint of coaxing and coercion, flopped into the landing- net. Since then, when fishing with a cast of three flies, I have sometimes endeavoured to make the droppers bob upon the surface. Often it is possible to succeed. It is always easy when you are allowing your flies to move round and down in a rapid stream. If the wind is strong and in your favour, it is possible, though not easy, even if you are casting upstream or THE CAST OF FLIES 105 across in slowly-moving water. You can then, to some extent, act as if you were using a blow-line. Sometimes the trick is successful. When it is, the trout, I think, take your fly to be one of the insects which dance up and down upon the water, touching and going, when their eggs have to be laid. On a lake in a high wind it is very easy to make the dropper flies imitate that action of the insects, and there also, though not so often, I have found it useful to ply the cast in that manner. Once, on an inventive inspiration, I attached a large dry leaf to the end fly, and sent it forth. The wind kept the leaf tending to drift away at a rate greater than that at which the boat was moving; thus, the line being pulled, the other two flies bobbed beautifully ; and the trout rose well. That evening, however, as I walked away from the lake I was burdened by something besides a weighty creel. Conscience makes jurists of us all. Between cross- lines, which are illegal, or the otter, which is illegal, and the leaf-line, I was unable to perceive any differ- ence in principle. I have not plied a leaf since then. It will be perceived, from what has been said, that those who condemn a cast of three flies as being clumsy are out of touch with the facts. Similarly, there are oversights in the disapproval of that tackle on the assumption that it is too effective. Of 106 HOW TO FISH course, certain admissions must be made. The angler who uses a single fly where he might use three flies imposes disadvantages on himself. It may be that he has in his book, instead of having on his cast, two lures that would attract the fish. Perhaps he forgets that sometimes, as during the Mayfly period, a rise of trout is at insects of several kinds. Occasionally, it would appear, while all the large fish are moving, this trout is taking flies of one species and that trout is taking flies of another. Clearly, then, if two of your lures are such as the insects on which the fish are feeding, you are likely to catch twice as many as the man who has on his cast only one of these, and thrice as many if all your lures are appropriate. Nevertheless, it is observable that the angler with a single fly means to do his utmost, even if that should result in his having unprecedented success. Can it be that his ideal necessitates a system of con- ventions designed to keep the sport comparatively meagre ? One is obliged to imagine so. His mind cannot be interpreted otherwise. Never, in literature or in life, have I found him reserved in rejoicing over a packed creel as the result of a day on the single-fly method ; but we must put that aside as being no more than a natural lapse from logic. He does THE CAST OF FLIES 107 really think that angling should be surrounded by taboos such as will constantly prevent the sport from being as good as it might be. He deems this necessary to the permanence of our common interests. He believes that if we all fished with three flies at a time, and that to the utmost of our powers, the trout would ere long become as rare as the golden eagle. That being so, his self-denying ordinance, which he would have us to accept for ourselves, is well- intentioned and to be considered with respect. In its full application, as barring methods of sport not yet touched upon, it will be so considered in another chapter. Meanwhile the question is, Does the use of three flies perceptibly injure a trout- stream ? The question cannot be answered by the simple Yes or No which learned counsel demands when he is in a tight corner, or is anxious to put yourself there and to confusion. In that region of our land which is most famous for trout-streams it is not usual to fish with more than a single fly. At least, we must assume so. I have often used three flies there, and have never been reproached for having used three ; but the rule does really seem to be according to the taboo. As regards Hampshire, therefore, our question is not answerable directly. We could answer it so only if three-flied casts were 108 HOW TO FISH common there. As they are not common, evidence directly connected with that highly-favoured county, in relation to which the taboo first arose, is lacking. There is no lack as regards the country in general. Evidence is abundant in that respect. Before seek- ing to discover what it points to, we must note the temptation to exaggerate misfortune. This is almost irresistible. The trout caught during one's earliest days by the water were so wonderful at the time that their size and even their numbers have insensibly expanded. If now, after the lapse of any- thing over ten years, your first real success seems to have been a dozen trout weighing nine pounds, be sure that the weight was not more than five pounds, and that the number was a little short of twelve. This does not imply that you are untruthful. It implies only that you are properly constituted, a person capable of appreciating the joys of life. Please read the word appreciating in its exact sense, and realise what a blessing it is that you think of bygone times with generosity. If the past did not shine in your imagination with a little added splendour, you would not think so composedly of the future. If you saw the past exactly as it was, and with the very feelings you had then, the future would be a subject of foreboding rather than of hope. It is largely because what a poet calls Natura Benigna THE CAST OF FLIES 109 has implanted in the human memory a habit of creative untruthfulness as regards the experiences of youth and manhood that the further years are face- able with more than courageous resignation. Making allowance for the tendency to overpraise the past, we find it impossible, as regards the trout- streams, to say that it was not really better than the present. In many cases, even as compared with their state a few years ago, after the faculty of wonder had cooled sufficiently to enable us to be at least approximately accurate in recollection, the streams show a marked falling-off; and that has to be accounted for. It is not easy to deny that the method of fishing now under consideration, which is deemed legitimate practically everywhere outside the South of England, may be a contributory cause. There are now very many more anglers than there used to be, and if the method is equivalent to multiplying each of them by three the subject certainly does assume an ominous aspect. On the hypothesis mentioned, an angler on the Tweed is thrice as deadly a foe of the trout as an angler on the Test. Is he so in fact ? I am inclined to think so. My belief is that if a skilful angler using three flies and a skilful angler using a single fly were to fish on equally good stretches of the same stream the one 110 HOW TO FISH would be not unlikely to have approximately three times as much success as the other. Still, this thought is not sufficient to con- demn the three-flies custom. If that were the main cause of the general decline of trout-streams, the decline would be greater in the Tweed, where the practice is in vogue, than in the Test, where it is banned ; but that is not the state of affairs. Anxiety as to the future of the waters is greater in the South of England than anywhere else. In spite of the scrupulous consideration with which they are treated by anglers, the streams in that region have on the whole fared worse than those in the West, or those in Wales, or those in Scotland, where the sport of angling is pursued under much less stringent conventions. It is obvious, then, that the use of three flies at once has but little to do with the decline of the trout anywhere. That is probably the least of the adversities from which the streams suffer. There is reason for believing, indeed, that none of them can be seriously affected by fly-fishing on any recognised method. Amid natural conditions trout are so prolific that the stock in almost any water is not perceptibly reduced by the efforts of fair and sensible anglers. The real causes of decline are apart from angling. One of them is agricultural drainage, the THE CAST OF FLIES 111 results of which will be shown in our closing chapter. Another is pollution, which is so likely to be rendered unnecessary by new methods of utilising sewage and the refuse from manufactories that streams now wholly ruined, such as the Wandle, may ere long be restored to the trout. Another is poaching by means of nets, which, though not prevalent in the South of England, where the waters are well watched, is an active industry in many other parts, where there is practically no watching at all. Anglers themselves, in their own conduct, can do much to promote that revival of helpful interest in the streams which is noticeable all over the kingdom. It is a striking fact that in many a place the decline of the trout has been a falling-off not in his numbers but in his average size. That is the case in practi- cally every quarter, outside the South of England, where there is neither serious pollution nor a near market for the produce of poaching by nets. The fish still swarm ; but they are small. Memorably large ones are rare in the basket ; they are rare in the water also. That is the result of much angling. Except in the great rivers, heavy trout are not always concealed. They are often visible to anglers when the stream is clear. Day by day throughout the season they are objects of special effort. Besides, whenever there is a real rise of 112 HOW TO FISH trout it is the large ones that are likely to be taken first. When a large fish is feeding eagerly the small ones near him are timid. The result is that in many a stream heavy trout are now fewer than they used to be. To catch the largest trout is the ambition of every angler in any water, and it is mainly because they are beset by many more anglers that large trout are rarer than once they were. In this, however, there is no reason for despair. It is possible to bring about an increase in the average size. That would come to pass within three or four years from the establishment of a rule that all captured trout under a certain weight should be returned to the water. The limit need not be uniform. What would suit one water would not suit another. It would be of no use, for example, to apply to the Highland lochs a rule which would be rightly applicable to a lowland stream. If it were decreed that no trout under f Ib. should be retained, we should very often have to go empty away from the lochs, and, as these are in many cases overstocked, that would not be to their benefit. For the same reason, it would be useless, until measures to be indicated in another chapter have been taken successfully, to apply any such standard to the mountain streams. These, as a rule, are overcrowded ; the trout in them are stunted, very THE CAST OF FLIES 113 small ; ampler food would make the fish grow ; time alone does not affect their average size. On lowland streams, however, a rule that no trout under f Ib. should be taken would be befitting. A rule to that effect governs the conduct of anglers on a long stretch of the Test, and the result is that trout above f Ib. are plentiful. It may be said, " That is all very well for Hamp- shire, where the waters are chalk-streams ; but it might not suit in other regions, where the land is clay or loam/' 1 Any such criticism would be beside the mark. "Chalk -stream," a phrase of such pleasant associations that it is a favourite in books and talk about angling, has caused much misunder- standing. It seems to mean a stream that is different from any of the common kind. That is a mistake. There is no essential difference between a chalk-stream and an ordinary stream. Both are of water approximately pure, and that is the same all the world over. In time of rain, it is true, the one stream, not having much clay or mud swept into it, does not become so deeply discoloured as the other ; but at normal times there is no difference. Those who fish on chalk-streams only are in the habit of writing and speaking about the great clearness of these waters. They seem to suppose that streams of the other class are muddy. That is not so in all 114 HOW TO FISH cases, and when it is so it is not due to the nature of the land from which the streams are fed. The Tay or the Tweed in ordinary flow is as clear as the Test or the Itchen in ordinary flow, and any other stream of which that cannot be said is discoloured only by pollution. The chalk -streams owe their prosperity and fame to the care that is taken of them. They owe it to that alone. There are in this country many other streams which are by nature quite as good. That is true, for example, of most of the " free waters " in Scotland, besides being true of others. The injuries they suffer, and the remedies that might be applied, will be discussed anon. Here it is relevant to say that a rule establishing a limit of weight under which trout should not be taken would in a very few years work wonders all over the kingdom. That restriction is really necessary. To forbid the use of three flies at a time is like opposing the tide with a mop. It is absurd. CHAPTER VI FLY-FISHING ON A STREAM Similarity of all Streams Water Deep and Slow An Instructive Experiment Where a Fly Should Fall An Astonishing Cast The First Rise What is Likely to Happen Water Wavy, but not Quickly-flowing Rapid Glides Water Swift and Broken Flies Going Round and Down Why That is Sometimes Right Observa- tions on a Mountain Stream Necessary Deductions Why Some Large Trout Frequent Rapids Playing a Trout Why Shallows are often Preferable. WITH three flies, then, we will fish in this stream for a few miles. You ask, Where is it? In any region you like to think about. Until we have visited a good many parts of the country, we are inclined to take it for granted that knowledge of a familiar river affords no clue to the nature of other rivers, and that ability to catch trout in one water does not imply ability to succeed elsewhere. There is not much need for this misgiving. Though various in size, all streams are astonishingly alike ; 115 116 HOW TO FISH and the ways of the fish in one of them are similar to the ways of the fish in any other. Here, where we now imagine ourselves, the water is deep and slow. You must, therefore, as you fish, move upstream. If you took the other direction, fishing as you went, you would usually be casting downstream, or allowing your flies to move round and down. That would not be right. How wrong it would be you will realise when you come to a place where the trout can be seen and watched. Such a place is where the water is about a foot and a half deep and the bed of the stream bright enough to allow the fish to be visible athwart it. If there are trout opposite, throw your flies over them, and observe what happens. It is possible that at the moment of the cast alighting, or soon after, a trout will rise at a fly; but if that does not happen a strange thing will. Unless your flies have scared the fish, one of them, or several, or all, will follow the lures as they go round and down. If you are standing two or three feet above the water you will see them distinctly. At times when they are not so much overfed as to be indolent, the trout will follow the flies again and again and again. You can see that they are curious but timid. If the faculty of thinking could be attributed to them, we should say that, whilst liking the looks of your flies, FLY-FISHING ON A STREAM 117 the fish are unable to understand how such fragile insects contrive to swim in defiance of the current. They are willing to eat but afraid to bite. It may RIVER FLIES. (Engraved from a photograph by Mr. P. D. Malloch. ) be said that amid such conditions they never do bite. At least, after many trials, I have never once known a trout to make the venture on following a fly in the suspicious manner de- scribed. That is why we must move upstream where the 118 HOW TO FISH water is flowing slowly. You then cast upwards, and your flies move in a manner that seems natural. A cast straight across, at every step, is not contrary to proper understanding. The flies will move down naturally for at least a yard. At each cast there- after, before taking another step onward, you should aim a little farther to the left if you are on the left bank of the stream, to the right if you are on the other. In that way you will gradually fish the whole stretch. Systematic procedure of this kind is advisable either when the trout are rising at insects very well or when they are not rising at insects at all. If they are not rising at all, you have, where the water is deep, no means of knowing exactly where one may be, and should make trial at as many places as you can. If they are rising well, it is not desirable to hurry; the more trout you catch in each two or three yards of your progress the more you are likely to catch before you are at the end of the stretch. On the other hand, if the water is broken by rises only here and there, and you find that casts methodically at random are not fruitful, there is no reason why you should persevere according to rigid rule. It often happens that all the trout, or most of them, are in a humour to rise simultaneously ; FLY-FISHING ON A STREAM 119 but sometimes only one here and there is rising. When that is so, it is well to cast at the rises. Most of the authorities say that the fly should fall three or four feet above where a fish has broken the water ; but there is reason, practical as well as theoretical, for doubting this. If you are straight behind a fish in quiet water he sees as much of the gut as you throw above him, and that may make him wary about the fly. It is better, therefore, if you are well behind, to let the lure fall exactly where the water was broken. Indeed, it may actually be well to let it fall an inch or two inches below that. Besides seeing in front of him, the trout sees to the sides and a little behind. Occasionally, after ignoring a fly time after time when it came down to him, a trout will rise at it if it falls a little behind, and when he does rise so he rises with exceptional resolution. I think that is because, having had no leisure for inspection, he does not doubt that it is an insect, and is anxious to seize it and be back in his poise without delay. At any rate, it is certain that when a trout turns aside or down to take a fly he hardly ever misses. If, instead of being behind a trout, you are opposite, there is no objection to letting the fly fall a little above him. The gut is not then so obtrusive. 120 HOW TO FISH Still, if he does not take the fly when it has come down to him, it is well to try him by dropping it at his very nose or at his gills. Especially to the novice, these instructions may seem exacting. I shall not wonder if some reader says, " Who can throw a fly so punctiliously ? Can one aim with a rod as neatly as one aims with a rifle?" The answer to these questions can be illustrated by an incident of which I was a witness. On a June evening a large trout close to the bank on the other side of the stream was feeding on midges. His rises were as regular, and almost as frequent, as the ticks of a grandfather's clock. He was going up and down, up and down, up and down ; not as the insects offered themselves, but as it suited his com- posure that he should take a midge from the abund- ance. One youth was casting at the trout ; another was looking on. Said the angler, " I'll have that fish, whether he takes me or not." " How ? " his friend asked. "I'll throw the fly into his mouth." The trout went on rising ; the angler went on casting. I perceived the angler's notion. It was that if he kept casting accurately and the trout continued to rise in the regular manner mentioned the fly would ere long fall at the very moment when a midge was being taken. This reckoning was justified. The large FLY-FISHING ON A STREAM 121 trout was hooked and landed by a fly that had been cast into his mouth. Within its own range, a good fly-rod is very nearly as sure a weapon as a rifle. Even the wind, if not strong or gusty, can be allowed for with approximate precision. You will not always make the fly drop within an inch of the spot at which you aim ; but if you have an aptitude for the rod and practise diligently, you will gain a skilfulness which before experience is incredible. You need not be perturbed about what is to happen when for the first time you have a rise. The perturbation that will follow the great event will be in itself sufficient. If the trout is of any consider- able weight, you will not, I think, catch him. If you feel the trout, besides seeing the break of the water that shows him to have risen, you may, in excitement, strike so hard that through a snapping of rod or tackle he and you will be parted there and then. On the other hand, whether you see only, or both see and feel, you may be so much overcome as to be able for no action whatever. In that event it is just possible that the trout may be defeated. He may have hooked himself. If so, being evidently of an unaggressive disposition, you will not use violence against him. You will be, for the time, his respectful and obedient servant, letting him go as he HOW TO FISH may list, following humbly ; and thus, by good hap, and perchance the help of a friend with a landing- net, you may kill him by kindness. On the whole I am disposed to hope that your first rise will be responded to in the manner first described. A do-nothing policy, though it is some- times successful, is the outcome, in such matters, either of paralysed will or of timidity. Even if it result in triumph, it teaches nothing; it does not so much as point a moral. It is not through your accidental gains that you become wise or capable ; wisdom or capacity comes through failure. Make the effort, then. Strike, angler, and strike home ! I adjure you thus because I cannot expect you at such a supreme moment to be cautious. The cautiousness with which some of us are born is canniness, not capacity; a dreary gift. Caution acquired through adversity is a wholly different thing. It is a talent that you wear gracefully. You will soon acquire it on the trout-stream. You will be less easily upset after your first smash. I shall not be astonished if you bring to bank the third or the fourth fish that rises. You will, I think, be all right if the fish is still on after the first six seconds. Its being so will indicate that when he rose you tilted the rod with sufficient promptitude and gentleness. He is firmly hooked ; nothing will FLY-FISHING ON A STREAM 123 give way if you remain calm. Let him bolt when he wishes to. Except when he leaps, do not for a moment allow the line to be so loose that you cannot feel him. By and by, perhaps within quarter of an hour if he is not much over a pound, you will begin to realise that he is in some measure under your control. You note that he decreases the pace of his rush, or stops altogether, when you apply a con- siderate pressure. When he begins to flop fiercely on the surface your heart will go into your mouth, or into your boots ; but never mind. That flopping is not a bad sign. If you resist the temptation to pull when he is engaged in it, he will begin, under tactful guidance, to come in when it is over. When almost at the landing-net, he may bolt. Let him go. He is not yet lost. He will be back soon. Again and again, when apparently as good as in the basket, he may take flight ; but each flight will be less violent and less far, each return more resigned, and eventu- ally he will be yours, and you a competent angler. I do really think that when you have caught one good fish, without favour of a fluke from beginning to end of the act, you are entitled to consider yourself entered of the craft. The actions of all your subsequent trout will be similar. Just beyond the deep and slowly-moving stretch 124 HOW TO FISH of our stream, we come upon a stretch of another kind. It is not smooth. It is troubled. The surface is a jumble of irregular waves. " Rapids,"" you say. It may be so ; but do not make up your mind without close observation. Some of the aspects of water are deceptive. Note, for example, its appearance where one pool, narrowing towards the end, overflows into another through a channel of sand or fine gravel. There, in many a case, the water seems almost, if not quite, motionless; but there, in many a case, it is extremely quick. Similarly, jumbled water, which to the casual eye suggests rapidity of flow always, is in not a few cases comparatively slow. In the glassy channel and in the troubled stretch alike, the explanation is to be found at the bottom. Where the bed of a stream is smooth, the surface also is smooth, even if the declivity be sharp and the flow swift. Where the bed is besprinkled by large stones, the surface, even if the declivity be slight and the flow not very swift, is wavy. When you come upon such a place you continue casting as on the slowly-moving water. You will find that your line and flies, cast in any upstream direction, are not rushed back to you in a coil. Although the ripples tax the vigilance of your eyes, you have command of the tackle. FLY-FISHING ON A STREAM 125 Water of this kind is often very good. The tremulousness of the surface gives you one of the advantages which wind confers when you are fishing on a sluggish reach or on a lake. It renders the gut less readily visible, or less a cause of suspicion, to the trout. Besides, especially in spring, such a place, perhaps because it is shallow and easily penetrated by the sun-rays, is a favourite with the fish. There, of course, you will miss more rises than you miss on placid water. The irregular motions of the surface baffle the eyes so much that many a trout will be gone before you know he has come. Never- theless, you will usually catch a few of the fish that rise ; and you will, I think, find that the liveliness of the water adds a pleasant sense of liveliness to the sport. Early in the year it is unwise to spend much time on the swift glides. Trout have not yet taken up quarters there. At the height of the season, how- ever, these places should not be passed untried. By that time the trout are well-fed, vigorous, able to resist the strong current without discomposure, and, especially at nightfall and after, as mentioned in our first chapter, large and very game ones are frequently to be found in the glides. There also you should cast upstream or across. 126 HOW TO FISH Now we come upon a stretch that calls for different treatment. The flow is both swift and turbulent. We must walk to the head of the stretch before beginning. That is because, on such water, instead of casting upstream, we should cast across and allow the flies to move round and down. I do not mean that you would never catch a fish by casting up. It is probable that you would now and then achieve success. An unusually gratifying success it would be, too. A trout hooked by a fly cast up into the rapids conveys a peculiar assurance that you are alert and delicately agile. This triumph, how- ever, would be infrequent. The view of artificial flies common to fish in the broken rapids is different from that which is common to fish elsewhere. The artificial action of a downstream fly, which, as we have seen, is repellant in smooth water, is attractive in the other. This statement will be received with wonder, perhaps with incredulity ; but it is not made without consideration. It is the outcome of so much experi- ment that I know it to be true. I realise that it seems to be incompatible with the considerations that justify casting upstream in smooth water. These, it will be remembered, are that a fly strong enough to swim across a moderate current is an FLY-FISHING ON A STREAM 127 object of suspicion to the fish, and that a fly coming down with the current in a natural manner is not so. It may be said, If a fly crossing a moderate current is suspect, can a fly crossing a stronger current seem innocent? I think it may, and I think that the possibility is explicable. In slow water a fly that goes round and down does so slowly; a trout that sees it does not lose sight of it ; the fly is seen coming, it is seen passing, it is seen going. I can imagine that in swift rough water a fly moving in the same way is never long in the vision of a trout. It goes much more quickly ; flashes past each fish lying in its circular route ; will be seen by each for an instant only, and, so seen, may appear to be an insect dropped upon the water at that moment. This proposition is not wholly speculative. It can be proved that the eyes of trout, though very alert, are baffled by water in a certain condition. Stroll along by the side of a mountain stream when it is in ordinary flow. You will see trout scutt- ling off to shelter while you are still two or three yards behind. Go when the stream is flooded, even if only to the extent of a three-inch or a four-inch rise. You can then, if you like, standing close by the edge, flick a fly or drop a worm straight before you into the middle of the stream and see a trout come 128 HOW TO FISH fearlessly to the lure. How is that ? Why did not the trout bolt when you came into the lateral line of his vision ? Those who fish in the lowlands, and there only, will have a ready answer. They will say that the stream was not only in flood but also dis- coloured, and that the discoloration prevented the trout from seeing you. That answer does not suffice. It is not a statement of fact. A mountain stream in a three-inch or a four-inch flood is not much different in colour from the same stream at summer level. It is as clear as a chalk-stream at its clearest. That is one of the reasons why I chose a mountain stream as the scene of our. experiment. I think that what prevented the trout from seeing you was the extra rush of the water. Why this should be I do not exactly know ; but I cannot imagine any other explanation. Lest some one should say that in time of flood the fish are eagerly on the outlook for food that has been washed into the stream, and therefore off-guard against intrusions, it must be mentioned that, whilst a flood does certainly stimulate the appetite of the trout, a fly or a worm skillfully dropped by an angler out of sight would be seized almost, if not quite, as eagerly when the stream was in ordinary, or less than ordinary, flow. The other reason why I chose a mountain stream is that the trout there are in a state of nature practi- FLY-FISHING ON A STREAM 129 cally unmodified. Grouse, ptarmigan, partridges, hawks, and deer pass over them now and then ; but these passings are natural in their environment. The intrusion of an angler, which in abstract science may be considered unnatural, is much less common- place than it is on a stream in the valley. There- fore, the mountain trout are those which show most distinctly what are the natural habits of the fish. One of these habits is not to see very far aside in rushing water. There the trout are intent exclu- sively on the things that are coming down over their very noses. That, I think, explains why they rise freely at flies which, cast across-stream, move swiftly round and downward. The movement is so quick that the direction is unnoticed. The lure seems to be a fly just dropped, or flashing past; and no suspicion is aroused. Collateral evidence in support of this theory is afforded by the fact that one never has a rise when the flies are at rest straight downstream from the point of the rod. A trout may rise at the moment when the cast has reached that position ; but the moment passed, no trout will, even if you hold them there for the remainder of the season. On running water the fly must move in some direction if a trout is to take it. In smooth water, where the eyesight of the fish is at its best, the 130 HOW TO FISH movement must be with the current, or approxim- ately so. In swift water which is rough unnaturalness of movement is frequently undetected. Indeed, it may, I think, be said that it is a positive advantage to the angler. It is absolutely certain that in rushing water many more fish can be caught by downward casting than can be caught by casting upward. This would not be explained by suggesting that you miss more rises when casting upstream than you do when casting down- stream. That suggestion is not compatible with the fundamental doctrine of our modern school, which is that, as trout invariably lie with their heads to the current, you have more chance of hooking a risen fish above you than a risen fish below, since you pull the hook into the one and pull it away from the other. The doctrine overlooks the fact that many a fish, rising at an artificial fly, turns aside, or even downward, before seizing it ; and therefore the doctrine is unsound. It is noted only in order that our study of the problem may not be vitiated by omissions. Besides, whilst it is probable that you do miss more of the rises that come from casting up- stream in rushing water than you miss when casting downstream, you do not have nearly so many rises FLY-FISHING ON A STREAM 131 when casting in the first -mentioned way as you have when casting in the other. That is what we have to explain. What is the secret ? It lurks, I think, in two considerations. In the first place, when the cast thrown upstream falls upon the water, the flies, presenting to the current a much larger surface than the gut, are the first part of your gear to be swept down ; they are pushed against the gut, frequently in a coil ; in that position they are not lifelike or otherwise attractive, but forbidding ; thus, unless you have a rise at the moment of the flies alighting, or immediately after, you do not have a rise at all. In the second place, trout that lie in rushing and broken water are not, I think, feeding on flies mainly. If they were, you would see them rising much more often than you do. There are quite as many insects on rushing water, or in it, as there are on or in quiet water ; but if you watch closely you will find that in rushing and broken water rises at insects are comparatively few. You may surmise that this is because there are not so many trout in the rushing water as there are elsewhere ; but that is not a complete solution. It is true that there are fewer trout ; but it is also true that each of these few takes fewer insects. Indeed, you will often find that in a stretch of rushing and broken 132 HOW TO FISH water the only rises are those provoked by your own lures. Here, if I be not mistaken, we have the main clue to the mystery. That the trout are not rising at insects borne down on the surface of the gush is probably because when trout are in such a place they are well fattened and not inclined for the nimbleness necessary if the common run of flies sweeping down are to be attended to ; but now and then, they perceive, here comes a fly which is a little out of the common run. It has just dropped above their eyes ; perhaps blown down by a puff of wind against the current, it .seems to hang for a moment ; this is an easy prey and must be taken. Angler, it is your flies, rather than the flies of Nature, that attract the fish in rushing and broken water. Should you doubt this assertion, go again to the mountain stream. Begin the experiment by casting upstream for a hundred yards. You will catch a few trout. Then walk another hundred yards and fish that stretch casting across and down. You will catch many trout. I shall not be astonished if you catch five times more when fishing down than you caught when fishing up. It is said that this mode of angling is all wrong. FLY-FISHING ON A STREAM 133 The accusation is on two counts. First, the mode is unscientific, and not likely to result in sport. We have dealt with that theory. Secondly, the lures are sunken and raking the stream, harrowing the trout. The answer to this charge is that flies cast across and going round and down on rushing and broken water do not sink. The current prevents them. They are practically on the surface always, and they are visibly floating often. Until recently I was at a loss as to why rushing water should ever be frequented by large trout. The presence of very small fish seemed to constitute an easier problem. These do not oppose much surface to the pressure of the current; they are very energetic, much more so than they will be when full-grown; one can understand them to be not much incommoded by the rush. Large trout are in different case. As a rule, they take up their quarters in places where the flow is slight or even altogether arrested. There are nearly always a few in the downstream corner at the junction of a tributary with the main river ; but if the tributary is coming with a gush you will notice, on looking carefully, that the fish are lying in slack water between the gush and the bank, darting into the gush now and then to seize some tid-bit and hurriedly retreat. When you come upon a large stone in the bed of 134 HOW TO FISH the stream you will nearly always find a good trout behind it, even if the general current is gentle. Similar fish are frequently to be found in the lee of any island in midstream, and just below any projec- tion from the bank that breaks the force of the water without causing a whirlpool. That such places are favourite hovers can be attributed only to a certain indolence of habit on the part of the trout. They do not there find more food than they would find elsewhere ; indeed, as we have seen, they have often to dart out of the havens to feed. They are not there protected in any special measure from enemies. They are protected only from the current. Why, then, if trout like repose as much as these facts indicate, do some of them, in maturity of their age and growth, and at the time of the year when they are most highly nourished, voluntarily go into the rapids ? I think I can now tell why they do so, or, at least, how they can do so with impunity. Last autumn, from a bridge on a great river, I was watching salmon running up to the redds. The channel was coarse gravel and very clean ; a few yards above the bridge, indeed, salmon were preparing spawn-beds. As I watched what was going on, my eye was caught by a strange thing. Immediately below me, where the water was running with very FLY-FISHING ON A STREAM 135 great speed, a leaf, submerged, suddenly stopped, and moved about, very gently, within a space not longer or broader than two feet. Why was it not borne away? I peered into the water searchingly, and found the explanation. In the bed of the river there was a slight depression, apparently of a few inches, where the leaf was resting. Beneath the full rush of the river there was a patch of water practically still. At this very place, earlier in the year, a heavy trout had habitually lain ! He had seemed to be defying the torrent ; but in reality he had opposed it only when he rose to seize something near the surface. At other times he had been as snugly lodged as he could have been in the slowly- moving backwater fifty yards above. This discovery indicated in a flash how it was that one frequently found heavy trout in rushing and broken waters. The water is broken, as we have seen, because there are large stones in it ; behind many of these stones, on the bed, although the surface is swift and bubbling, there will be resting- places; in all probability there will be hollows in the bed even apart from the boulders. When a trout in such water rises at a fly, he hardly ever misses. Almost always you feel him before seeing him. Force of habit makes you strike by raising the rod gently ; but his own action and 136 HOW TO FISH the swift passage of the line, which is nearly taut, have between them fixed the hook. Usually his first action is to rush downstream. I myself, to help the reel, run after him ; but perhaps that is a bad habit. He is not likely to empty your reel in the first rush, and thus you are at liberty to stand, if you please, upon your dignity. It is well to hold up the rod. If you allow the wild fish to pull it down until it is pointing at him, you lose one of the services of the instrument, which is to let you know what the strain is ; you are, in fact, playing him from the reel, and are not unlikely to allow the strain to reach the stage at which the gut will snap. On the other hand, it is not well to hold the rod so high that the point, but for the fish, would be straight above your head. In that position, as in the other wrong one, the rod loses its sensitive power to indicate what the strain is ; if you incline it farther back you are almost certain to bring about a break. The rod, held high, should also incline a little forward. It should do so even when the trout is nearly in the net or nearly drawn upon the beach ; even then, when the battle seems won, a tilt back- ward, natural in your eager excitement, may cause a snap, and the rapidity with which a trout FLY-FISHING ON A STREAM 137 regains the river, when he is free to try, is wonderful. Playing a fish is not a mystic art founded on elaborate rules. Probably you will begin by mishap once or twice ; but you will master the subject soon. A good rod, truth to tell, teaches its own uses. These are none the less delightful because they are easily learned. Another peculiarity of broken water, either swift or moderate, is that it often yields a trout or two when the calm deeps yield none. This is partly attributable, I think, to its being comparatively shallow. When trout are in a humour to feed on flies they are poised very near the surface. When they are not in that humour they are lying on the bed of the stream. Thus, trout in the deeps, when not feeding, are so far below your fly that they may not see it. At any rate, it is a fact that when you do not find the surface of a deep stretch dimpled with rises you do not usually catch a trout there. Trout in a stretch of the other kind, even when close to the bottom, which is their habitual position, are so little removed from the surface that they cannot help seeing your lure when suddenly it is above them. Thus, when there are anglers abroad on stretches of both kinds, the fish in the broken water are subjected to temptation ; while sometimes the fish 138 HOW TO FISH in the deeps, not seeing, are not really at that risk, but as safe as they would be if they were not being cast over at all. Clearly, then, when the trout generally are not feeding, the broken water, either swift or slow, is the stretch on which you can angle with the better hope. CHAPTER VII TO THE LAKE, AND BACK Afloat Why Stand? Importance of the Question Position of Trout in a Lake In Dead Calm A Strange Dis- closure In Time of Wind Atmospherical and Water Currents How Flies Should be Used on a Lake Haunts of Trout There A Drift Down the Middle- Daily Habits of the Trout At Nightfall, and After. THIS stream on which we have been fishing flows out of a lake, and to that we have now come. Either we can go forth in a boat, or fish from the shore, for an hour or so. To be afloat is preferable. The lake being very shallow at many places along the shore, you would there be obliged to spend time in searching for suitable water. Afloat, on the other hand, there need be no waste of minutes. Besides, you are not put to any disadvantage. A boat seems clumsy, a thing from which the fish, noticing it from afar, are sure to flee ; but that is a misapprehension. In a boat you are better placed in relation to the game than you are on shore. 139 140 HOW TO FISH Until further reflection, this is true even if you stand. As your feet are below the level of the water, your head is lower than it is when held erect ashore. Still, why stand ? As you will see when visiting any much -fished lake, standing is apparently deemed the proper attitude. There is an upright angler in the bow of each boat, and there is an upright angler in the stern. They would be in better positions if they were seated. Their caps would be so little above the water that their attitude would be equivalent to that of the stream angler who on all fours approaches his fish stalkingly. This question of standing or sitting is not unim- portant. Standing, you may, in certain states of weather, see more distinctly, and can cast farther ; but you may be sacrificing a greater advantage. You may be scaring away fish that would soon be within range of your cast if you were seated. Perhaps you think that, there being no stream in a lake, the trout are not, as those in a river are, all lying with their heads in one direction, and that, therefore, though you may by standing put to flight those which are looking towards you as you drift along, those which are turned away and do not see you soon are sufficient for the day. This raises an interesting question. Is it the case TO THE LAKE, AND BACK 141 that trout in a lake are in the irregular dispositions which I have imagined you to assume ? Certainly there are indications suggesting that your belief is correct. Often you raise and hook a LAKE FLIES. (Engraved from a photograph by Mr. P. D. Malloch.) trout at such a short distance from the boat that you are almost obliged to be assured that he cannot have been looking your way. Once, when drifting quickly, I myself, seeing a rise, cast over it instantly, and hooked the fish within a yard of the keel. It seemed impossible to believe that his outlook had 142 HOW TO FISH been towards the boat. Besides, it is known that in a certain state of the weather the trout actually are disposed in a go-as-you-please manner. This I discovered by accident. In the middle of the Highlands lies a loch to which, when the wind is in the south-west, there is borne from Glasgow, a good many miles away, soot. The soot comes across-country in the clouds. When, the wind ceasing, these hang over the lake, the soot falls. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven, but is not otherwise Shakespearean. It becomes visible on the water. It forms a thin film on the surface. Well, out on that loch one muggy evening when the water was dead calm, I saw a strange thing. Trout were rising at small insects. Each fish, having taken an insect, dropped its head and raised its tail ; and when it was down it had left its shape upon the surface. The shape was a dark space of clear water. The fish had taken with it that portion of the film against which its head and back had pushed. All round my boat the surface was marked by shapes of this kind, and these were without uniformity of direction. There is strong reason for taking that irregularity to be exceptional. It is attributable, I think, to dead calm, which is unusual. On the same loch there are two places where the TO THE LAKE, AND BACK 143 trout can be seen when the sun shines. Both are on the north shore. One is a sandy bay backed by a rude wall and trees ; at the other place there is a high ledge of rock, also overhung by trees. The explanation of the trout being visible must be, I think, that the sunlight reflected from the stones illumines the water. Now, every time of drifting through that bay and past that ledge of rock, which are close together, I noticed that the trout were all posed in the same direction. They were lying with their heads to the breeze, looking for the insects that were being puffed along on the ripples. This, I think, shows that the current of the external atmosphere affects the trout in a lake exactly as the current of the water affects those in a stream. In both cases the fish face the flow. It seems clear, then, that on a lake, in wind, the less any part of you is above the water the better. All the trout look towards you. It will now be realised that if you stand erect you are in a worse pose than you are when fishing in a river down- stream. On a river you can stand still; but on a lake, the boat drifting, you are every moment brought a little nearer to the fish. On a river the current of the water helps you to get the flies away; but on a lake, unless the flies are floating and catch the wind, they never go farther than 144 HOW TO FISH the spots at which they fall. Let us, then, be seated. On a lake the manner of using the flies is in principle the same as that which is proper on a river. On a river, except when the flies are moving round and down, they should in pace and in direction move as nearly as possible with the current. On a lake, where there is no current, they should be allowed, as a rule, to lie, for a few seconds, where they fall. To pull them would be to impart to the lures a motion that would render them unlike realities. Nevertheless, the flies having fallen, you must not hold the rod quite still. Even as on a river, having cast upstream, you raise the rod in order to gather in the line which the current is bearing down, on a lake you raise the rod in order to make allowance for the movement of the boat. Although you may not notice it, the boat, if there is a breeze, is going towards the place where the cast alighted ; going, perhaps, quickly. Thus, in order to prevent the line from becoming slack and sinking, you must gradually raise the rod until it is erect. Only by doing so can you strike on the instant when a rise is seen ; only by doing so can you be sure of feeling a rise that is not seen. The rate at which the rod is TO THE LAKE, AND BACK 145 raised should be equivalent to that at which your craft is drifting. It is easily discoverable by obser- vation. The look of the line on the water indicates whether you are dragging your flies, or allowing them to sink unduly, or leaving them as they should be. This necessary habit of observation soon be- comes instinctive, and then it involves no effort. Instinct, indeed, has a large part to play in lake- fishing. It has to inform you about things of which on streams you gain knowledge through the eyes. On streams, in many a place, you can see the trout and what they are doing. You see, sometimes, the whole process of their rising at insects or at your flies ; sometimes, again, you see that one of your flies scares them. On a lake it is only at exceptional places, such as those recently described, that you ever see the fish in the water. For the rest, in one respect, you are casting almost as it were blindfold. On certain lakes, of which Lochleven is a striking instance, the trout often rise as plenti- fully as they do in streams, and very inspiring it is to see the wavy or rippled water dotted all over with the circular turbulences which they make ; but these lakes are exceptional. It is, I think, their shallow- ness that accounts for the peculiar liveliness of their trout. Hardly any part of Lochleven, for ex- ample, is so deep that flies cannot breed in it, and 10 146 HOW TO FISH thus all over that water there is, or may be, a rise of fly every day of the season. On other lakes, those which are deep for the most part, one does not often, except on serene evenings in spring or summer, see the trout rising plenti- fully. Indeed, it is not unusual to fill a basket without noticing more than a few rises apart from those at your lures. Even on a lake of this kind, however, your action need not be wholly determined by chance. A good deal is known about its trout. At all times of the season many of them are lying not far from the shores. There, it is true, you will raise and hook not a few that are too small to keep ; but there also, now and then, you will, especially in spring, come upon good ones. The shores of islands are similarly frequented. Then, if there is in the lake any stretch which is comparatively shallow, you may be hopeful on going thither. At the end of May and in June trout lie under trees that overhang the shore. They are waiting for caterpillars to drop upon the water, and often rise eagerly at a lure with a green body. In summer, if you accept the guidance of the gillie, you will drift along over " the shallow and the deep." That is in many a place a well-marked line. Often, a few yards from the land, the water, which TO THE LAKE, AND BACK 147 before that deepens by inches, deepens suddenly by a good many feet. The gillie does not err in his advice. Large trout lie between the shallow and the deep. The gillie, however, might take you farther without causing you to fare worse. There is no real warrant for his belief that a drift down the middle of the lake would be time and labour lost. In a gentle wind it would probably yield you sport. As this may seem to be a random remark, I had better mention that it is not. I have frequently caught many trout when drifting down the middle of a lake. These never included a small one, and the average weight of the fish was better than that of the trout selected for keeping from among those caught along the shores. It is astonishing that the belief touched upon, that it is useless to fish far out on an ordinary lake, survives in families that have dwelt by its shores for many generations. Perhaps the belief arose from the original discovery that, whilst trout well away from the shore do not rise at all in heavy wind, that is often the very best time for sport in the shallows near the land. On lowland streams and on lakes alike, there is every season a period during which the trout are not very eager, in day-time, to take flies. It is not exactly the same in all regions, beginning and ending 148 HOW TO FISH earlier in some than it begins and ends in others ; but it is definable roughly. The slack time, it may be said, is from the middle of June until nearly the middle of August. Almost any day then you will see on the water many insects unheeded by the fish. The trout have had enough of flies for a while, and are either supporting themselves on other fare or practically fasting. When the Lammas flood is falling they will begin to rise again, and they will rise well until the close of the season. What is to be done in the weeks of their in- difference will be considered by and by. Here, in a manner more detailed than would have been opportune in Chapter L, we will note their daily habits throughout the times when they are, or may be, feeding on insects freely. Although there sometimes is a day on which the fish hold festival without pause, as a rule they have stated meal-times. In a somewhat empirical manner, this was noted by Mr. W. C. Stewart fifty years ago. What was then known as " the time of the take, 11 he wrote, occurs more or less, at some part of the day, throughout the season. " The leap- ing of the trout in all directions at once informs the angler when it commences. It sometimes happens several times during the day, but rarely lasts more TO THE LAKE, AND BACK 149 than an hour at a time, and stops as suddenly as it commences. It is only during the take that a trout can be caught in very deep water, as it is only then they are hovering near the surface on the outlook for flies. Once it is over they retire to the bottom and there lie." These assertions are accurate in the main; but they take a good deal for granted, and leave a good deal unexplained. They assume, as Mr. Stewart expressly affirms in the context, that the time of the take is determined by, and simultaneous with, the rise of aquatic insects. This is partly true. When the March Brown or the Mayfly, for example, rises in thousands from its bed in the stream, the trout rise after it ; but, as Mr. Stewart himself noted, the rise of the trout rarely lasts more than an hour. Why? The rise of fly is not as a rule so brief. Often it goes on for hours. Why do the fish take only an hour of the feast which is so generously spread ? Then, it is a fact that on almost any day of the season the trout, unless a thunder- storm is coming, will now and then take artificial flies even if there is no rise of aquatic insects. Why? In order to arrive at answers to these queries, one must, if possible, justify the statement that the trout have regular meal-times. No angler of 150 HOW TO FISH much experience will deny this. Let us think of what happens on any ordinary day about the middle of the year. The dawns are fresh and tempting, and very early. Especially if you have just escaped from Town, you are likely to be out with the rod before breakfast. As far as sport is concerned, you might as well be spending the time in bed. Indeed, there is no call even to hurry over the morning repast. For many hours after the sun is fully up, the trout are " off." Here and there you see them, like shadows in the sunlit water, apparently on the alert for things to seize ; but, do as you will, fish you ever so daintily, they are not to be caught. Suddenly, about eleven o'clock, or a little after, one takes a fly. If you have a friend fishing somewhere else on the same water, in all probability he will report, when you meet, that he caught a trout at the same time. After that, for three hours, you and he will have trout after trout, or at least rise after rise ; but at two o'clock, as a rule, sport will be over for a time. For what time ? Until about five. On lakes I have often found good fortune between luncheon and tea-time ; on lakes, indeed, I am in- clined to believe, that is the best part of the day ; but on streams it is nearly always a dull period. Unless there chances to be a rise of some particularly TO THE LAKE, AND BACK 151 attractive fly, no more than a single fish or so is to be expected. It is implied that the trout wake up again at five, and usually that is the case ; but their rise then is fitful, half-hearted, and brief. After that there is another time of nothing-to-be-done. The surface of the water may be covered with insects of much variety ; but the trout are slumbering, or seem to be. They rise little at real flies, and at counterfeits not at all. In the evening, what a change ! Whenever the sun has dipped below the sky-line, be it that of a hill or that of the flat earth, every trout in the water becomes ravenous. This is said on the assumption that the weather is what may be called ordinary. If the coming of the dusk is accompanied by the coming of heavy clouds, or by the thickening of cirrus, the fish may not move at all ; but if the sky remains clear, or thinly veiled, or becomes so, and the breeze is light, or gone, they will rise eagerly. It is commonly supposed that on a trout-stream the night is better than the day ; but that, I think, is a superstition. In summer, it is true, sea-trout sometimes snap bravely at gentles, real or artificial, all night ; but brown-trout are more sedate in their habits. They rise very well, often splendidly, from 152 HOW TO FISH sundown until quite dark ; but then, as a rule, they cease. Moonlight? It does not seem to prolong the meal-time. Some fishermen, indeed, maintain that the moon puts a stop to sport. That statement seems to need qualification. I have never contrived to make the trout rise well when the moon was in a clear sky; but often until about midnight, in summer, I have had brisk sport when the moon was screened by thin clouds. The pastime is particularly exciting then. Casting into the light, which, though low, is clear, you can see a rise distinctly ; and at the witching hour one has a cheerful expectance that monster trout will leave their caverns and give battle such as is not to be looked for in the common- place glare of day. After midnight there is a period of silence. Though it is not long in summer, it seems so. The dews are strangely cold and drenching, and the minutes laggard. What are we waiting for ? The dawn ! There is not much of it, measured by time, in the middle of summer ; but just before the sun flames into sight there is half-an-hour during which the trout rise so freely that it is easy to forgive oneself for not having been to bed. Many of the largest fish are lying lazily in very shallow water at the TO THE LAKE, AND BACK 153 sides of the stream, ready to seize any fly that is offered. Such is the daily routine of the river trout. It seems to show, not merely that the fish feed when the flies rise, but also that they feed at regular intervals, or, at least, are ready to rise if food, or a substitute, is to be found. The only marked difference between the habits of lake trout and those of stream trout is that, as has been indicated, the lake trout often feed all afternoon. Frequently, indeed, beginning about eleven in the morning, the rise of the lake trout becomes faster and more furious as the time passes. It goes on until about five o'clock. Then it ceases, or begins to cease. Sometimes all the fish give over suddenly; at other times, it would seem, a few of them linger near the surface, rising in a desultory manner. It will, I think, be found that, if the weather and the wind are constant, lake-fishing is practically always at its best in the afternoon. From the cessation of the rise until sundown there is a weary wait; but watch the surface of the water when the dusk begins, and you shall see that which will make your pulses stir again and your tired limbs feel refreshed. If the breeze has dropped, as usually happens, the whole lake will be dimpled with rises ! This is the time for a cast of 154 HOW TO FISH midges mounted on very fine gut. It is well to CAST Oif MIDGES. (Engraved from a model made by the Author. ) offer a variety of the minute flies. A midge is a midge all the country over ; but it seems to be an TO THE LAKE, AND BACK 155 insect of various tribes, each of which is of distinctive hue or hues. At any rate, in evening lake-fishing, I have invariably found that the trout show an unmistakable preference for some particular midge. Now it is a blae-wing with harems-ear body ; then it is a woodcock-wing with hareVear body ; anon, but rarely, it is a blae-wing with red hackle ; very often it is a black gnat or simply a black hackle without wings. With these dainty lures splendid sport is to be had in a long summer evening; and rather a wonderful fact is that, although it may be that in broad daylight fish were to be found only near the shores or on other shallows, in the dusk they rise all over the lake. When the darkness deepens the trout begin not to see the midges ; at any rate, the rises become less frequent. For a brief space then a cast of day flies is often effective. No real day fly is abroad at that hour ; but moths are, and it would seem that to the trout in the uncertain light a day fly and a moth are indistinguishable. CHAPTER VIII DRY FLY A Wonderful Spectacle A Rise of Fly A Rise of Fish The Dry-fly Man His Modernity His Antiquity The Primitive Fisherman His Means and Methods His Modern Follower Paraffin and another Oil How often is there a Perfect Rise ? Nature's Unobserved Ways The Purist's Fastidious Mind. ANY one strolling observantly by the side of an unpolluted stream is likely to witness a wonderful act of Nature. Flies appear just above the surface of the water. A moment before nothing was to be seen ; now there they are ! The spectacle is puzzling. It makes one think of the Indian who by strange arts can cause you to see a shrub where no shrub is ; but it is not a deception. The flies are real. They are multiplying, too. The swarm thickens as you gaze. You cannot note the coming of the new insects or distinguish them among the others ; but you know that they must be. At first there were only a few 156 DRY FLY 157 flies, perhaps from seven to twelve; now there are scores in the living cloud, which is expanding. Where have they come from ? Whence are they coming ? In theory, of course, one knows all about them. They are merely " a rise of fly." Last year insects laid eggs among the reeds, or on the stones, or in the mud, at this part of the stream ; and the eggs, after gradual developments through stages known to the entomologist by foreign names, have taken to themselves wings and perfectness. That explanation, however, is too matter-of-fact for the delicate marvel we are witnessing. If these insects were born in the water, they must be coining out of the water ; but are they ? Peer as carefully as you may, you cannot see them coming out. You cannot detect the emergence of a single insect. All you are sure of is that where flies were not . . . now they are. They have come out of the water, somehow, just as snowflakes occasionally come out of the blue sky. The snowflakes seem to spring into being out of nothingness. So do the aquatic flies. It may be that, instead of rising directly through the water well out in the stream, they have been, and are, crawling up the bank, and taking wing from the grass above the brim. Perhaps ; but one cannot find them in the grass, either. Mysteriously they appear, fluttering in the air. 158 HOW TO FISH Even when only an instant old, the insects seem quite at home. They have taken to the air as naturally as dabchicks take to the water. If you came upon them just after completion of the rise you would think that they had been in possession of their little space for a long time. They are active on the wing ; but there is no fuss among them, no disorder. Only some creatures have completeness of harmony with the universe immediately after birth. Lambs have. They play in fearlessness, seem to know all the country round, and look you in the face as with a quizzical familiarity. Red deer and foxes, for example, are different. Even when these are constrained or petted into tameness, their eyes never lose the expression of curiosity, seeming to say, " What's it all about this world ? " Our aquatic- flies, I think, are like the lambs. In suddenly coming into visible being they obviously feel that life has nothing more to teach. They are at home in the airy world the moment they enter. Why not? They have but a few hours to live. When we think of this, Nature seems rather pitiless. Why give only an hour or two of joy in the perfumed summer to creatures that, in the water, have taken a year to grow ? Some of them, indeed, such as the Mayfly, have been two years preparing for maturity. This seems to imply waste or cruelty ; but, of course, DRY FLY 159 the seeming is deceptive. For many months before they appear in the upper air, certain aquatic insects are very much alive. They rout about, foraging, and they have enemies, such as fish, to escape from. They have sentient life, and to all appearance interest in life, and therefore, doubtless, joy of life. By and by, if you watch, you will see that some of the flies go down to the water again. It may be that they just touch the surface and rise a few inches, repeating this action quickly ; it may be that they go in altogether, disappearing as mysteriously as they came. Whether they merely bob up and down upon the water or dive into it depends upon their species. In either case they are females laying eggs. The process is exhausting ; and ere long many of the females, together with many of the males, are float- ing rather helplessly down the stream. If they are of a kind well relished by the trout, the observer will be rewarded by the spectacle of nature suddenly astir in another mode. The water is dimpled with expanding rings. All the fish in the stream, it would appear, are rising ! The observer does not stroll very far before coming upon a person whose mien denotes excitement. A rod lies beside him on the bank. Perhaps he is scrutinising the stream through a field-glass ; perhaps 160 HOW TO FISH he is endeavouring to catch something in a small- meshed net. He is anxious to discover what insect it is that has brought the trout to the rise. When he has made sure, he will put on his cast an effigy. He is a Dry-fly Man. Any other angler, without being extra-sec, would, it is true, seek for a lure to match the fly on the water ; but it is as we say. This one is known to us. He is as dry as the Southern School can make him. He is of austere countenance. He does not smile with ease. He takes more gracefully to frowns. The fact is, this is a sorrowing Werther burdened by the errors of other men. Have a care ! Should he see damp flies on your cast and good trout in your creel, it is not the compliments of the season you will receive. If you are not big enough to punch his nose, he will tell you that you are little better than a poacher. Even if your stature be such as counsels caution, you shall not escape him. His pen is mightier than his fist. It will scourge you in public print next week. This person is not to be challenged rashly. Let us make peace while we are in the way with him, lest worse befall. Let us do him all possible honour. He has three claims to consideration. In the first place, the Dry-fly Man is modern. DRY FLY 161 He is in a fashion that has recently become more assured and exultant from year to year. The cult of ,