Minor tactics of the chalk stream and kindred studies

MINOR. TACTICS """

OF THE CHALK STREAM

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MINOR TACTICS OF THE
CHALK STREAM

AGENTS

AMERICA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

64 & 66 Fifth avenue, NEW YORK

AU8TEALASIA . . . OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

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IMDIA MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD.

MACMILLAN BuiLni.NG, BOMBAY

309 Bow b.VZAAR bTRBBT, CALCUTTA

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<=¥ ^ - cHP — - ^ (Jj^

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Rough Spring Oi
No. 1.

,ive.

Iron Blue Dun.
No. 00.

Greenwell's Glory.
No. 0.

Grkenwell's Glorv.
No. 00 Double.

Watery Dun.
No. 00 Double.

Pale Summer

Greenwells Glorv.

No. 1.

Pale Summer
Greenwell's Glory.
No. 00 Double.

Black Gnat.
No. 00.

Tup's Indispensable.
Wet. No. 0.

Tup's Indispensable.
Wet. . No. 00 Double.

Olive Nymph.
No. 0.

Dotterel Hackle

Tied Stewartwisk

No. 00.

Tup's Indispensable.
;. Floater.

No.O.

MINOR TACTICS OF THE
CHALK STREAM

AND KINDRED STUDIES

BY

G. E. M. SKUES

{SEAFORTH AND SOFORTH)

SECOND EDITION

LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK

1914

Pint publistied in March, lOIO

H)eMcateC>

TO MY FRIEND THE DRY-
FLY PURIST, AND TO MY
ENEMIES, IF I HAVE ANY

NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION

It would ill become me if I allowed a Second
Edition of '' Minor Tactics of the Chalk Stream "
to go to the public without expressing to those
writers who have dealt with my volume in the
Press my grateful sense of the generosity with
which, whether they were or were not in agree-
ment with the main object of the work — the
endeavour to put the wet fly in what I conceive
to be its right place on the chalk streB.m — they
have one and all received it. In the fifty or so
Press notices, short and long, I find, without ex-
ception, an absence of the harsh word, and a per-
vading urbane and kindly spirit which is of the
true Waltonian still. Such fault as has been
found has in the main been that I havr shown
undue timidity in dealing with the pretensions of
the dry- fly purist. To that criticism I should like
to reply that in dedicating my book to ray friend
the dry-fly purist I was using no idle word — that
in asking him to make room for the wet fly beside
the dry fly as a branch of the art of chalk-stream
angling, I knew myself to be making a claim on

vii

viii NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION

him which he would not wiUingly concede, and I
was determined that no harsh or provocative word
of mine should give offence to any of the many
good friends, good anglers, and good fellows who
would not — at the first onset, at any rate — find
themselves able to see eye to eye with me,

I take leave to hope that the interval since the
first publication of *' Minor Tactics " has brought a
good few of them round to the view that, without
ousting the dry fly from pride of place as major
tactics of the chalk stream, the wet fly has its
subsidiary, but still important, place of honour in
chalk-stream fishing.

G. E. M. SKUES.

FOREWORD

Rising from the perusal of " Dry-Fly Fishing in
Theory and Practice/' on its pubhcation by Mr.
F. M. Halford in 1889, I think I was at one with
most anglers of the day in feeling that the last
word had been written on the art of chalk-stream
fishing — so sane, so clear, so comprehensive, is it ;
so just and so in accord with one's own experience.
Twenty years have gone by since then without my
having had either occasion or inclination to go
back at all upon this view of that, the greatest
work, in my opinion, which has ever seen the light
on the subject of angling for trout and grayling;
and it is still, as regards that side of the subject
with which it deals, all that I then believed it.
But one result of the triumph of the dry fly, of
which that work was the crown and consummation,
was the obliteration from the minds of men, in
much less than a generation, of all the wet-fly lore
which had served many generations of chalk-
stream anglers well. The effect was stunning,
hypnotic, submerging ; and in these days, if one

excepts a few eccentrics who have been nurtured

ix

X FOREWORD

on the wet fly on other waters, and have little ex-
perience of chalk streams, one would find few with
any notion that anything but the dry fly could be
effectively used upon Hampshire rivers, or that
the wet fly was ever used there. I was for years
myself under the spell, and it is the purpose of the
ensuing pages to tell, for the benefit of the angling
community, by what processes, by what stages, I
have been led into a sustained effort to recover for
this generation, and to transmute into forms suited
to the modern conditions of sport on the chalk
stream, the old wet-fly art, to be used as a supple-
ment to, and in no sense to supplant or rival, the
beautiful art of which Mr. F. M. Halford is the
prophet. How far my effort has been successful
I must leave my readers to judge. I myself feel
that in making it I have widened my angling
horizon, and that I have added enormously to the
interest and charm of my angling days as well as
to my chances of success, and that, too, by the
use of no methods which the most rigid purist
could rightly condemn, but by a difficult, deli-
cate, fascinating, and entirely legitimate form of
the art, well worthy of the naturalist sports-
man.

In the course of my too rare excursions to
the river-side, I have elaborated some devices,
methods of attack and handling, which I have
found of service, some applicable to wet-fly, some
to dry-fly fishing, or to both. In the hope that

FOREWORD xi

these may be of interest or service, I have included
papers upon them.

In conclusion I should like to express my
gratitude to the proprietors of the Field, for
permission to reprint a number of papers con-
tributed by me to that journal over the signature
*' Seaforth and -Soforth," which come within the
scope of the work ; and to Mr. H. T. Sheringham,
for his invaluable advice and assistance in the
arrangement of these papers.

G. E. M. SKUES.

CONTENTS

PAGH

NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION - - - vii

FOREWORD - - - - - - ix

CHAPTER

I. OF THE BEGINNING OF THINGS - - - I

OF THE INQUIRING MIND - - - I

II. SUBAQUEOUS HAPPENINGS IN NATURE - - 8

OF THE DROWNING OF DUNS AND OTHER

INSECTS ----- 8

OF THE STAGES IN A RISE OF DUNS - "9

III. SUBAQUEOUS HAPPENINGS IN ART - - "14

OF MEDICINE FOR BULGERS - - "14

OF UNDER-WATER TAKING, ITS INDICATIONS,

AND THE TIME TO STRIKE - - "I?

OF ROUGH WATER AND GREY-BROWN SHADOW 20

IV. SUPPLEMENTARY IN THE MATTER OF FLIES - 24

OF WET-FLY DRESSINGS FOR CHALK STREAMS - 24
OF THE IMPORTANCE OF COLOUR OF TYING SILK 2g
OF THE IMITATION OF NYMPHS, ETC. - "30

V, SPECIAL CONDITIONS AND WET-FLY SOLUTIONS - 36

NERVES - - - - - 36

OF THE TROUT OF GLASSY GLIDES - -38
OF THE WET FLY IN POOLS, BAYS, AND EDDIES 4I

OF THE JUDICIOUS USE OF THE MOON - 44

OF THE WET-FLY OIL TIP - - "45

OF GENERALSHIP AND THE WET FLY - - 47

A POTTED TROUT, AND ONE OTHER - "49

OF TWO SATURDAY AFTERNOONS - - 54

xiii

xiv CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

VI. UNCLASSIFIED - - - - _ ^7

OF HOVERING - - - - - ^7

OF THE PORPOISE ROLL - - "59

VII. SUNDRY CONSIDERATIONS - - - - 60

OF THE RELATION OF PATTERN TO POSITION - 60

OF THE USE OF SPINNERS - - - 63

OF GENERAL FEEDERS - - - .67

ON ATTENTION TO CASUAL FEEDERS - "70

OF THE FREQUENTATION OF DITCHES - "73

OF THE NEGOTIATION OF TAILERS - - 76

OF THE FASCINATION OF BRIDGES - - 78

VIII. MAINLY TACTICAL - - - - - 81

OF THE DELIBERATE DRAG - - - 81

IN THE GLASS EDGE - - - - 84

OF THE CROSS-COUNTRY CAST - - - 87

WHAT TUSSOCKS ARE FOR - - - 8g

OF THE ALLEGED MARCH BROWN - " 9'

OF GENERAL FLIES - - - - 92

IX. CONSIDERATIONS MORAL, TACTICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL,

AND INCIDENTAL - - - "95

OF FAITH - - - - "95

OF THE BANK OF VANTAGE - - - 98
OF COURAGE AND THE JEOPARDIZING OF

TUPPENCE ha'penny - ^h
OF IMPOSSIBLE PLACES

OF THE USE OF THE LANDING-NET - - log

OF THE WEEDING TROUT - - "1^5

INCIDENTALLY OF THE LIGHT ROD ON CHALK

STREAMS - - - - - 117

AND OF WET-FLY CASTING - - - I20

X. FRANKLY IRRELEVANT - - *. - 122

A DRY FLY MEMORY - - - - 122

XI. ETHICS OF THE WET FLY - - - . 126
XII. APOLOGIA --__.- i^I

103
105

MINOR TACTICS OF THE

CHALK STREAM,

AND KINDRED STUDIES

CHAPTER I
OF THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

OF THE INQUIRING MIND.

I READ recently in that fine novel, " A Superfluous
Woman," a sentence enunciating a principle of
wide application, to which anglers might with
advantage give heed : " We ought not so much to
name mistakes disaster as the common practice of
servile imitation and faint-hearted acquiescence."
In no art are its practitioners more slavishly con-
tent "jurare in verba magistri" than in angling.
Tradition and authority are so much, and indi-
vidual observation and experiment so little.

There is, indeed, this excuse for the novice, that,
going back to the authorities of the past after
much experiment, he will find that they know
in substance all, or practically all, that, apart
from the advance of mechanical conveniences and
entomological science, is known in the present

I

2 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

day. The difficulty is to dissociate the dead
knowledge, which is reading or imitation, from
the live knowledge, which is experience. And
if these pages have any purpose more than
another, it is not to lay down the law or to dogma-
tize, but to urge brother anglers to keep an open
and observant mind, to experiment, and to bring
to their angling, not book knowledge, but the
result of their own observation, trials, and experi-
ments— failures as well as successes.

In all humility is this written, for I look back
upon many years when it was my sole ambition to
follow in the steps of the masters of chalk-stream
angling, and to do what was laid down for me —
that, and no other ; and I look back with some
shame at the slowness to take a hint from ex-
perience which has marked my angling career. It
was in the year 1892, after some patient years of
dry-fly practice, that I had my first experience of
the efficacy of the wet fly on the Itchen. It was a
September day, at once blazing and muggy. Black
gnats were thick upon the water, and from
9.30 a.m. or so the trout were smutting freely.

In those days, with " Dry -Fly Fishing in Theory
and Practice " at my fingers' ends, I began with
the prescription, " Pink Wickham on 00 hook,"
followed it with " Silver Sedge on 00 hook, Red
Quill on GO hook, orange bumble, and furnace." I
also tried two or three varieties of smut, and I rang
the changes more than once. My gut was gossa-

OF THE BEGINNING OF THINGS 3

mer, and, honestly, I don't think I made more
mistakes than usual ; but three o'clock arrived,
and my creel was still " clean," when I came to a
bend from which ran, through a hatch, a small
current of water which fed a carrier. Against the
grating which protected the hatch-hole was gener-
ally a large pile of weed, and to-day was no
exception. Against it lay collected a film of scum,
alive with black gnats, and among them I saw a
single dark olive dun lying spent. I had seen no
others of his kind during the day, but I knotted on
a Dark Olive Quill on a single cipher hook, and laid
siege to a trout which was smutting steadily in the
next little bay. The fly was a shop-tied one, beauti-
ful to look at when new, but as a floater it was no
success. The hackle was a hen's, and the dye only
accentuated its natural inclination to sop up water.
The oil tip had not yet arrived, and so it came
about that, after the wetting it got in the first
recovery, it no sooner lit on the water on the
second cast than it went under. A moment later
I became aware of a sort of crinkling little swirl in
the water, ascending from the place where I con-
ceived my fly might be. I was somewhat too
quick in putting matters to the proof, and when
my line came back to me there was no fly. I
mounted another, and assailed the next fish, and
to my delight exactly the same thing occurred,
except that this time I did not strike too hard.
The trout's belly contained a solid ball of black

1—2

4 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

gnats, and not a dun of any sort. The same was
the case with all the four brace more which I
secured in the next hour or so by precisely the
same methods. Yet each took the Dark Olive at
once when offered under water, while all day the
trout had been steadily refusing the recognized
floating lures recommended by the highest au-
thority. It was a lesson which ought to have set
me thinking and experimenting, but it didn't.
I put by the experience for use on the next
September smutting day, and I have never had
quite such another, so close, so sweltering, with
such store of smuts, and the trout taking them so
steadily and so freely.

It was a September day two or three years later
when I had another hint as pointed and definite
as one could get from the hind-leg of a mule, but
I didn't take it. There was a cross-stream wind
from the west, with a favour of north in it, and
all the duns — and there were droves of them —
drifted in little fleets close hugging the east bank,
where the trout were lined up in force to deal
with them, and feeding steadily. Fishing from the
west bank, I stuck to four fish which I satisfied
myself were good ones, and in over two hours'
fishing I never put them down. I tried over them
all my repertoire. I battered them with Dark
Olive Quill, Medium Olive Quill, Gold-ribbed
Hare's Ear, Red Quill (two varieties). Grey Quill
and Blue Quill, Ogden's Fancy, and Wickham, and

OF THE BEGINNING OF THINGS 5

I left them rising at the end with undiminished
energy, and went and sat down and had my
lunch. Then I sought another fish, and began
again, when suddenly it occurred to me that I had
not tried the old-fashioned mole's-fur-bodied,
snipe-winged Blue Dun. I had only a solitary
specimen, and that was tied ^vith a hen's hackle ;
but such as it was, and greatly distrusting its
floating powers, I tied it on. I did not err in my
distrust, for after a cast or two it was hopelessly
water-logged. I dried it as well as I could in my
handkerchief, and despatched it once more on its
mission. It went under almost as it lit, just above
a capital trout, but for all that it was taken
immediately. The next trout, and the next, and
the next, took it with equal promptitude ; one was
small, and had to go back, but the others were
quite nice average fish.

Then, in my eagerness, I was too hard on my
gossamer gut when the next trout took my fly, and
he kept it. I had no more of these Blue Duns,
and I did not get another fish till the evening.

Still I did not realize that I was on the edge of
an adventure, nor yet did I realize whither I was
tending when Mr. F. M. Halford told me how a
well-known Yorkshire angler had been fishing
with him on the Test, and, by means of a wet fly
admirably fished without the slightest drag, had
contrived to basket some trout on a difficult
water.

6 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

Indeed, it was several years later that, after
fluking upon a successful experience of the wet fly
on a German river which in general was a dis-
tinctively dry-fly stream, I began to speculate
seriously upon the possibility of a systematic use
of the wet fly in aid of the dry fly upon chalk
streams. In conversation with the late Mr.
Godwin (held in affectionate remembrance by
many members of the Fly-fishers' Club, and,
indeed, by all who knew him), who had seen the
very beginnings of the dry fly on the Itchen, and
remembered well and had practised the methods
which preceded it, I learned how, fishing down-
stream with long and flexible rods (thirteen or
fourteen feet long), and keeping the light hair reel-
line off the water as much as possible, these early
fathers of the craft had drifted their wet flies over
the tails of weeds, where the trout lay in open
gravel patches, and caught baskets of which the
modern dry-fly man might well be proud.

I gathered, however, that a downstream ruffle
of wind was a practical necessity ; and as I could
not pick my days, and such as I could take were
few and far between, I realized that, even if they
appealed to me — which they did not — these
methods would not do for me, as I might, and often
did, find the river glassy smooth, but that, if I were
to succeed, it must be by a wet-fly modification of
the dry-fly method of upstream casting to indi-
vidual fish.

OF THE BEGINNING OF THINGS 7

I could not believe that the habits of the trout
were so changed as to make this impossible^ and I
began to look for opportunities to experiment.
The bulging trout presented the most obvious
case, yet it was rather by a chain of circumstance
than by the straightforward reasoning which now
seems so simple and obvious that I was led into
experiments along this line.

How I effected some sort of solution of the
problem with a variant of Green well's Glory, and
later on with Tup's Indispensable, is detailed
elsewhere, as also are my experiments with the
trout of glassy glides (who seldom break the
surface to take a winged insect, presumably be-
cause of the drag), together with other fumblings in
the search of truth ; but from that time forth I
have seldom neglected an opportunity to test the
wet fly on chalk-stream trout. It may be that
on many occasions I have used the wet fly when
the dry would have been more lucrative. On the
other hand, I have found it furnish me with sport
on occasions and in places when and where the
dry fly offered no encouragement, nor any prospect
of aught but casual and fluky success, and I have
provided myself with a method which forms an
admirable supplement to the dry fly, and has
frequently given me a good basket in apparently
hopeless conditions, and in the smoothest of
water and the brightest of weather.

CHAPTER II
SUBAQUEOUS HAPPENINGS IN NATURE

OF THE DROWNING OF DUNS AND OTHER INSECTS.

It has been advanced as an argument against the
use of the wet fly, that duns and the other small
insects which drift down upon the surface of a
stream are never seen by the fish under water,
and that a wet fly is therefore an unnatural object,
especially if winged. " Never " is a big word,
and I venture to think the case is overstated. I
have watched an eddy with little swirling whirl-
pools in it for an hour together, and again and
again I have seen little groups of flies caught in one
or other of the whirls, sucked under and thrown
scatterwise through the water, to drift some
distance before again reaching the surface.

Anyone who has kept water-insects in spirit
for observation or mounting is aware that they
readily become water-logged, and by no means
insist on floating. Again, we have it on the best
authority that certain of the spinners descend to
the river-bed to lay their eggs, and probably, that
function performed, they ascend again through

SUBAQUEOUS HAPPENINGS IN NATURE g

the water, giving the trout a chance while in
transit. Thus the trout may well be familiar
with winged insects under water. Even if he
were not, it may be doubted whether he is suffi-
ciently intelligent to reject a thing which he
fancies he has found good to eat on the surface
merely because it happens to be below. Indeed,
experience so conclusively proves that trout will
take the winged fly under water that those who
repudiate both these propositions are upon the
horns of a dilemma. Many hackled flies are more
or less — and generally less — careful imitations of
nymphs or larvas. But of these more anon.

OF THE STAGES IN A RISE OF DUNS.

It has often been the subject of admiring com-
ment that, before ever the angler can see a single
fly in air or upon water, the trout will have lined
up under the banks, and settled at the tails of weed-
beds, and have begun to take toll of insect life ;
and many have commented on the startling una-
nimity with which trout begin to feed all at once
all over a river or length. Some seem to suppose
that, with a quick appreciation of values of tem-
perature, atmosphere, barometric pressure, and
what not, the trout discern when the flies wiU rise,
and are there in readiness. Is it necessary to sup-
pose anything far-fetched ? It has often seemed
to me that the swallows and martins can and do
detect in advance the preparations for a rise in tlie

10 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

swarming of nymphs released from weed or gravel,
or whatever their particular fastness may be, and
borne down the current. This precedes the actual
hatch for a period greater or less according to
temperature, pressure, and perhaps other little-
understood conditions ; and so it happens that no
trout that is not " by or dinar' " stupid could fail
to appreciate that game is afoot, and to put him-
self in position to enjoy the sport.

If one goes down to the bottom of the High
in Winchester, near by King Alfred's statue,
and peers between the railings, one may generally
see several brace of handsome trout ; and if one
takes some new bread and presses it together in
little balls hard enough to make it sink, but not
sink too fast, and throws it to the trout, one may
see some most beautiful catching, neater than that
of the most finished fielder in the slips. So when
the nigh-upon-hatching nymphs are being hurried
down, your trout shall enjoy some pretty fielding
before the bulk of the quarry come near enough to
the surface to attract attention to the trout's
movements by any swirl or break on the surface.
If the trout be lying out on the weeds from which
the nymphs are issuing, you shall see the trout
swashing about in the shallow water covering the
weed-beds, in pursuit of the nymphs, and present-
ing the phenomenon known as " bulging." This is
the first stage of the rise.

Presently, as the swarm of drifting nymphs

SUBAQUEOUS HAPPENINGS IN NATURE ii

becomes more numerous, escaping units, first in
sparse, then in increasing numbers, reach the sur-
face, burst their swathing envelopes, and spread
their canvas to the gales as subimagines. Pres-
ently the trout find attention to the winged fly
more advantageous — as presenting more food, or
food obtained with less exertion than the nymphs
— and turn themselves to it in earnest. This is
the second stage. Often it is much deferred. Con-
ditions of which we know nothing keep back the
hatch, perhaps send many of the nymphs back to
cover to await a more favourable opportunity
another day ; so it occasionally happens that,
while the river seems mad with bulging fish, the
hatch of fly that follows or partly coincides with
this orgy is insignificant. But, good, bad, or in-
different, it measures the extent of the dry-fly
purist's opportunity.

Good, bad, or indifferent, it presently peters
out, and at times with startling suddenness all the
life and movement imparted to the surface by the
rings of rising fish are gone, and it would be easy
for one who knew not the river to say : " There
are no trout in it." For all that, there are pretty
sure to be left a sprinkling, often more than a
sprinkling, of unsatisfied fish which are willing to
feed, and can be caught if the angler knows how ;
and these will hang about for a while until they,
too, give up in despair and go home, or seek con-
solation in tailing. Often these will take a dry

2 — 2

12 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

fly, but an imitation of a nymph or a broken or
submerged fly is a far stronger temptation. This
is the third stage.

Now, the dry-fly purist is quite entitled to his
own opinions, and to restrict himself to the second
stage ; but if there be other anglers who are wilhng
to vary their methods, who can and do catch
their trout, not only in the second stage, but also
in the first and the third, and if their methods
spoil no sport for others, who shall say that they
are wrong in availing themselves of all three stages
of a rise of duns ?

I remember well one day late in May when the
three stages were excellently well marked. There
was a bright sun, a light breeze from the east with
a touch of south in it, and I was on the water
about 9.30, and took the left bank, with the wind
behind my hand. No fish were rising, but on
reaching the water-side I almost stumbled on top
of a trout which stood poised over a clear gravel
patch under my own bank. Fortunately, how-
ever, I withdrew without his seeing or suspecting
me. My pale-dressed Greenwell's Glory trailed in
the water, and I delivered it without flick, well wet,
a foot or so above the spot where I had marked
my fish. There was no break of the surface, but
a sort of smooth shallow hump of the water about
the size of a dinner-plate, with a dip in the middle,
as the fish turned and I pulled into him. Pres-
ently I saw a brace bulging vigorously over some

SUBAQUEOUS HAPPENINGS IN NATURE 13

bright green weeds. It was not the first or the
tenth time that my sunken Greenwell covered the
fish that one of them came ; but when he did there
was no doubt about it, and he joined number one
in the basket. Two more followed in a short time,
unable to resist the same lure. Then it seemed
to fail of its effect, though the river was freely
dotted with rings, and after wasting much time
I tumbled to the situation, and changed to a
floating No. i Whitchurch — most effective of
Yellow Duns — on a cipher hook. The effect was
immediate, but I had put it off too long, and when
I looked up from basketing my third trout to the
Whitchurch the rise had worn out. But I was
not done yet. I changed to a Tup's Indispensable
dressed to sink, and, fishing upstream wet in likely
runs and places, I made up my five brace before I
knocked off for lunch.

CHAPTER III
SUBAQUEOUS HAPPENINGS IN ART

OF MEDICINE FOR BULGERS.

For many a year bulging trout were the despair
of my life, and in those days I would gladly have
said " Amen " to the opinion expressed in a letter
to the Fishing Gazette of March 13, 1909, by the
angler who writes over the pen-name of " Bally-
gunge," that when trout were bulging you " might
as well chuck your hat at them" as a fly. Many
times had I vainly plied them with Gold-ribbed
Hare's Ear, as recommended by Mr. F. M. Hal-
ford, as well as most of the current imitations of
duns on the water, and Wickhams, Tags, and other
fancy flies to boot. Hoping against hope, I never
gave up trying for those aggravating fish, and one
day, towards the end of a bad exhibition of bulging
by the trout, I actually caught a brace, and lost a
third, on a Pope's Green Nondescript — a dun tied
with starling wing, red hackle and whisk, and a
dark green body ribbed with broad flat gold.

On many occasions since I have found that fly
kill well at the beginning of a rise, and it may be

14

SUBAQUEOUS HAPPENINGS IN ART 15

that on the occasion spoken of the trout which I
got were on the verge of giving up bulging in
favour of the winged dun. But I was not satisfied.
Then the recollection of a visit to the Tweed
struck me with the notion that on that water all
the trout practically bulged all the time, and that
with their wet-fly patterns Tweed anglers were
able to give a good account of themselves, and I
searched among Tweed patterns for the nearest
analogue to Pope's Green Nondescript. I thought
I found it in Greenwell's Glory, if varied by ex-
changing for the hen blackbird wing a starling
wing. The likeness was not very exact, but it
was close enough to experiment on. The point
that I wanted to achieve was to combine with
the colours of Pope's Green Nondescript the type
of dressing special to the Tweed Greenwell's Glory.
Rough, slim upright wings, well split, and stand-
ing well apart when wet, made of several thick-
nesses of feather so as to absorb water, and not
to give it up readily when cast ; body spare, con-
sisting of the waxed primrose tying silk only,
closely ribbed with fine gold wire, and one or at
most two turns of a furnace hen's hackle with
ginger points, no whisk (whisks only help flotation),
and a rather rank hook to take the fly under.
The type of dressing is to be found applied to all
his patterns in Webster's " Angler and the Loop
Rod."
Whether it was because I had faith in my

i6 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

medicine, or whether any other cause was at work,
I know not, but the experiment was, despite some
misses due to failure to judge the right moment to
pull home the hook, an immediate success.

Bulging trout are bold feeders, and seem to mind
being cast over less than do those which are taking
surface food ; but they are much more difficult to
cover accurately, because they rush from side to
side and up and down, and the odds are that, if
you cast to one spot, the trout is careering off in
pursuit of a nymph to right or left of it. But once
the trout sees the fly, the chances of his taking it
are far better than are the chances that a surface-
feeding trout will take the floating dun which
covers him. The fly is allowed to drag in the
stream, so as to be thoroughly wet, and is then
cast upstream to the feeding fish in all respects
like a floating fly, except that it is not dried or
allowed to float. The weight of the reel-line will
probably be enough to dry the gut, so that the
risk of lining your trout is minimized, only the
fly and the first link or so of gut going under
before it reaches him. I found it best to tie this
pattern on gut, and, dressed as described, it has
been worth many a good bulger to me, apart from
its value for general purposes.

Later on the value of Tup's Indispensable fished
wet impressed me much, and its resemblance to a
nymph induced me to give it a trial upon bulging
trout. For wet-fly purposes this is as near the

SUBAQUEOUS HAPPENINGS IN ART 17

dressing as I am at liberty to give : Primrose
tying silk lapped down the hook from head to tail,
a pale blue or creamy whisk of hen's feather as
soft as possible and not long, three or four turns of
coarser untwisted primrose sewing silk at the tail,
body rather fat, of a mixed dubbing of a creamy
pink (invented by Mr. R. S. Austin, the well-
known angler and fly-dresser of Tiverton), and a
soft blue dun hackle, very short in the fibre, at the
head, the dressing being preferably finished at the
shoulder behind the hackle. When this fly is
thoroughly soaked it has a wonderfully soft and
translucent, insect-like effect. It proved even
more successful than Greenwell's Glory, and with
one or other I am almost always able to give a
good account of bulgers instead of coming empty
away.

OF UNDER-WATER TAKING, ITS INDICATIONS, AND
THE TIME TO STRIKE.

Friends with whom I have discussed the use of
the upstream wet fly on chalk streams have fre-
quently said to me : " But how are you to know
when the trout takes, and when to strike ?" It is
a very pertinent question, and the answer is not
to be given in a word. Often the indications which
bid you pull home the hook are so subtle and in-
conspicuous that the angler is at a loss to account
for the miracle which is evidenced by his hooped
rod and protesting reel, but even in the roughest

3

i8 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

water something helps the angler to divine the
moment for action. In a subsequent section, under
the heading *' The Grey-Brown Shadow/' will be
found an account of a day's sport with the wet fly
in an upstream wind so rough as to throw the
river into waves. The flash of the fish as it turns
to take the fly may often be seen, so dimly and so
momentarily as to be apt to escape notice if one
does not know what to look for ; but I have on
several occasions even divined it through water
which reflected a bright white glare, and seemed
opaque to the eye. If on these occasions a hooked
trout had not proved the truth of my observation,
I could not have sworn to having certainly seen
anything move ; but there through the surface,
which looked at the angle of view impenetrable to
the eye, I did seem to glimpse a faint pink flash
that corresponded to no movement on the surface,
and there was the fish soundly hooked, and no
fluke about it.

Often under an opposite bank, when the light
will not permit you to see your gut or fly, you will
see a trout suddenly ascending to near the top of
the water, and as suddenly sinking ; then, if you
tighten, ten to one your hook is firmly in his jaws,
and you see him shaking his head savagely at the
unexpected restraint upon his liberty ere he makes
his first rush.

When fish are bulging, the moment of taking
the fly is generally marked by a swirl, and the

SUBAQUEOUS HAPPENINGS IN ART 19

angler should strike immediately. Fortunately,
a wet-fly strike, even if misconceived or mis-
timed, is far less likely, so long as the fish is clean
missed and not lined, to alarm him than is a
strike with the dry fly, because the wet fly comes
out through the water at a point far below the
fish instead of being drawn along the surface.

In glassy glides, which are always fast water,
one either sees the fish turn to the fly, or, if the
light prevents it, one sees a little crinkle, or break,
work up through the water to the surface, which
warns the angler to strike. Often the gut lying
on the surface goes under as the fish draws in the
fly, and alike in daylight and moonlight it acts
as a float ; and even if the fly be taken too deep
below water for any other indication to be in time,
it will warn the angler to attend to business. An
ingenious angler, as elsewhere explained, has con-
ceived and utilized successfully the idea of oiling his
gut cast for fishing wet directly upstream in rapid
water, and an excellent device it is for its occasion.

But perhaps the commonest indication of an
under-water taking in water of slow or moderate
pace is an almost imperceptible shallow humping
of the water over the trout. It is caused by the
turn of the fish as he takes the fly, and when the
angler sees it it is time to fasten. If he waits
until the swirl has reached and broken the surface
(and it may not be violent enough to do so), he
may be too late. If the fly drops directly over

3—2

20 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

the fish, that shallow hump seems often almost
simultaneous with the lighting of the fly ; but if
the cast be wide, your trout will not infrequently
dart a yard or more to a wet fly — when for a dry
fly he would do no such thing — and then the angler
has a warning of the coming of the shallow hump
on the surface which tells him that the iron is hot.
It may be questioned, however, whether it is not
more difficult to time correctly the strike for which
one has had such warning than one which comes
without warning.

In my experience, the trout which takes under-
water is generally very soundly hooked. A trout
taking floaters on the surface frequently sips them
in through a narrowly-opened slit of mouth, but
an under-water feeder draws in the fly by an ex-
tension of the gills which carries it in with a full
gulp of water.

In the effort to divine the indications which call
for striking with the wet fly I confess I find a subtle
fascination and charm, and, when success attends
me, a satisfaction beside which the successful hook-
ing of a fish which rises to my floating fly seems
second-rate in its sameness and comparative ob-
viousness and monotony of achievement.

OF ROUGH WATER AND GREY-BROWN SHADOW.

It was blowing up freshly from the south-west as
the train ran into Winchester one April a year or
two back, and ere the water-meadows were reached

SUBAQUEOUS HAPPENINGS IN ART 21

the distinct bite in the wind had given ample
warning that, maugre the crisp yellow sunshine,
11.30 clanging from the cathedral spires left ample
time to get down to the water-side and put rod
and tackle together before the big dark olives or
the smaller and rather lighter olives, which warn
one to put up a Gold-ribbed Hare's Ear, put in an
appearance. April was three parts through, yet
the backwardness of the season made conditions
correspond more nearly to three weeks earlier in
the normal year.

Soon everything was in readiness, and a couple
of dark Rough Olives, tied on gut, with dark starling
wing, heron herl body dyed in onion dye and
ribbed with fine gold wire, and hackle and whisk
of ginger, lightly dyed olive, were put into the
damper to soak, on the chance that the wet fly
might pay better than the dry.

Noon and the quarter-past chimed from the bel-
fry, and then a big dark olive drifted on to an eddy
near by, and, lifted out on the meshes of a landing-
net, was identified. The hint was enough. One
of the flies in soak — tied on No. i hooks — was
knotted on, and the surface was scanned for the
first dimple. Presently it was located — such a
tiny, infinitesimal, dacehke dimple, hinting rather
than proving the movement of a trout. It was
hardly noticeable in the turmoil made by the
strong ruffle of the upstream wind against the
somewhat full current of the stream. It was

22 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

rather far across for accurate casting in such a
wind, and presently a sudden gust slammed the
line down upon the spot with such a splash as no
self-respecting trout could be expected to endure.

A movement upstream was prescribed by the
conditions, and presently another dimple like the
last was spotted in a more favourable position.
It was repeated after an interval, but no fly was
to be seen on the surface ; so, without an attempt
at drying, the Rough Olive was despatched on his
mission, and lit a foot or so above the spot.
Again, and once more, it did so, and then there
was a hint of a grey-brown flicker in the hollow of
a M^ave. By instinct rather than reason the hand
went up, and the arch of the rod showed that the
steel had gone home. In due course the trout — a
fish of fourteen inches — was landed, and the angler
proceeded upward.

He soon found, however, that to reach and
cover the trout satisfactorily it behoved him to
cross, and tackle them from the other side, and he
made his way to the footbridge. On the way
down, on the main stream he saw another hint of
a rise in midstream, where the waves were highest.
The wind served him well, and the fly was over
the trout in no time. For four or five casts there
was no response ; then again that grey-brown
shadow for a moment in the trough of a wave,
mounting rod, a screaming reel, and a vigorous
trout was battling for his life.

SUBAQUEOUS HAPPENINGS IN ART 23

Arrived presently at the desired spot, the wet
Rough OHve was taken off and a dry-fly pattern
mounted and duly oiled, and offered to three fish
in succession, with the result that they all went
down. Then back once more to the wet-fly, and
thrice more ere 1.30 struck there was the faint
flash of grey-brown under water, the same instinc-
tive response, a spirited battle for life (successful
in one instance), and then the rise petered out and
not a fish was stirring. And though at 2.30 a strong
rise of the smaller olive came on, and lasted till
4.30, keeping hundreds of swallows and martins
busy, yet not another fish put up a neb. Perhaps
it was because the sun had gone in.

There are those who wax indignant at the use
of the wet fly on dry-fly waters. Yet it has a
special fascination. The indications which tell
your dry-fly angler when to strike are clear and
unmistakable, but those which bid a wet-fly man
raise his rod-point and draw in the steel are fre-
quently so subtle, so evanescent and impalpable
to the senses, that, when the bending rod assures
him that he has divined aright, he feels an ecstasy
as though he had performed a miracle each time.

CHAPTER IV
SUPPLEMENTARY IN THE MATTER OF FLIES

OF WET-FLY DRESSINGS FOR CHALK STREAMS.

Assuming that we have made up our minds to
test the wet fly upon chalk streams, it must be
taken as an axiom that the ordinary patterns of
the dry fly will not do. They are built to dry
and to float. The patterns required must be built
to soak and to sink. Therefore bodies and hackles
which throw the water must be rejected in favour
of bodies and hackles which take up the water or
readily enter it. So dubbed bodies in place of
quills, hen hackles in place of cock's, and of these
a minimum of turns in place of a maximum ; and
if whisks are used, they, too, must be soft and
soppy. For the same reason, wing material, if
employed, should be so arranged as to take up
the maximum of water, and to let it go as un-
willingly as possible. Furthermore, the bulk of
material in proportion to the hook metal must be
reduced as far as possible.

Given these requirements, let us look around,
as I did, among all the various systems of wet-fly

24

SUPPLEMENTARY IN THE MATTER OF FLIES 25

dressing in use, from John o' Groat's to Land's End,
and see what features we ought to borrow from
them. If we make up our minds, as I think we
shall, that it is desirable to expose the body of our
fly freely, we shall not adopt any system which
lays the wings low over the back of the fly, that
type being designed to secure what is called ** a
good entry " for a dragging fly, and we have
nothing to do with dragging flies or any form of
river raking or dredging, or with any flies which,
like the Devonshire types, carry superabundance
of bright cock's hackles. So we are limited to the
systems which dress their flies with upright wings,
like the Tweed and Clyde types, and to the soft
hackled Yorkshire style.

The conditions, however, of our waters confine
us to tiny patterns — Nos. o and 00 hooks in the
vast majority of cases, and occasionally No. i—
and the supply of tiny soft absorbent hackles from
birds other than poultry, sufficiently small to leave
the body well exposed, is hardly to be had. So,
taking one consideration with another, it would
seem that the Tweed and Clyde patterns, being
used on a broad and in many places equably-
flowing river, will have advantages enough to
invite a trial.

Now, what are the features of the Tweed and
Clyde patterns ? First there is the spare body,
dressed with tying silk only, with or without wire
ribbing, or lightly dubbed with soft fur, making

4

26 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

an absorbent dubbing ; then a small and lightly -
dressed soft hackle, two turns at the outside, close
up behind a pair of wings tied in a bunch, and
either left single or, preferably for our purposes,
split in equal portions, and divided with the
figure-of-eight application of the tying silk behind
the wings and in front of the head, the whole
tied on a rank, and not too light, round-bend
hook.

It will be suggested that the trout does not see
the winged dun under water. That is approxi-
mately, though not quite absolutely, true ; but
for all that, being in some respects rather a stupid
person, if size and colour are right, he will not
make much bones of the position of the fly with
reference to the surface being incorrect. It might
be supposed, again, that a hackled pattern would
better suggest the nymph stage than a winged
pattern. This may be true, but the theory has
yet to be worked out in much detail before one
can dogmatize about it. Elsewhere my pre-
liminary efforts in this direction are described.
Here I could say that the wings built up of a
length of feather rolled into a bunch have the
advantage of taking up a lot of water, and not
releasing it readily ; and they also assist to let the
fly down more lightly on the water than so lightly
dressed a fly would fall but for the wings. To let
a hackled fly down as lightly, one would need a
lighter wire and a larger hackle. The wings also

SUPPLEMENTARY IN THE MATTER OF FLIES 27

help the fly to swim correctly in the water, with
the weight of the straight, unsnecked, round-bend
hook as the counterpoise to the parachute action
of the wings.

My own behef is that wet flies tied on gut swim
better and hook better than those tied on eyed
hooks. As the drying action of casting is reduced
to a minimum, they are not so ready to go at the
neck as when used as dry flies ; but if the angler
prefers it, there is no reason why he should not use
eyed hooks, though snecked bends of any kind and
upturned eyes are deprecated. Down-eyed hooks,
round, unsnecked, square-bend, and Limerick, in
the order named, are recommended.

When immediate sinking in rather fast water is
required, additional weight can be got by tying
on a second hook, and making the fly what is
technically known as a " double." These are
more easily tied on gut than on eyed hooks,
though there is a maker who supplies eyed hooks
for doubles in sizes Nos. i, o, and 00, one packet
containing the eyed hook, and the other the
shorter-shanked companion hook to be lashed on.
In either case the hooks have to be separated with
the thumb-nail, so as to stand at an angle of
45 to 60 degrees before using. Lest it should be
suggested that these double hooks, fished wet, lend
themselves to a form of snatching, let me say that
I can only recall a single instance of a trout being
hooked on a wet double otherwise than fairly in

4—2

28 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

the mouth, and in the course of my experiments
I have given them an extensive trial.

The range of wet-iiy patterns required is not
extensive. I have found the following serve all
practical purposes :

1. Rough Olive.

Wings : Darkest starling.

Body : Heron herl from wing feather dyed brown-olive, and ribbed
with fine gold wire.

Legs : Dirty brown-olive hen hackle, with dark centre and yellowish-
brown points.

Hook : No. I,

2. Greenwell's Glorv.

Wings: Hen blackbird, dark starling, medium starling, or light

starling (lighter as season advances).
Body : Primrose or yellow tying silk, more or less waxed (lighter

as season advances), ribbed with fine gold wire.
Legs : Dark furnace hen hackle (black centre, with cinnamon

points) to medium honey dun (lighter as season advances).
Hook : No. I, o, or oo.

3. Blue Dun.

Wings : Snipe,

Body : Water-rat on primrose or yellow tying silk. Vary body by

dressing with undyed heron's herl from the wing, and ribbing

with fine gold or silver wire.
Legs: Medium blue hen.
Hook : No. I or o.

4. Iron Blue.

WtHgs: Tomtit's tail.
Body : Mole's fur on claret tying silk.
Legs : Honey-dun hen with red points.
Hook : No. o or 00.

5. Watery Dun.

Wings : Palest starling.

Body : Hare's poll or buff opossum on primrose tying silk.

Legs : Ginger hen's hackle.

Hook : No. 00.

6. Hare's Ear.

Wings: Dark or Medium starling.

Body : Hare's fur from lobe at root of ear ; rib, narrowest gold

tinsel or fine gold wire.
Legs : A few fibres picked out or placed between the strands of the

silk and spun.
Hook : No. I or o

SUPPLEMENTARY IN THE MATTER OF FLIES 29

7. Black Gnat.

Wings : Palest snipe rolled and reversed.

Body : Black tying silk with two turns of black ostrich herl or knob

of black silk at shoulder.
Legs: Black hen or cock starling's crest, two turns at most.
Hook : No. 00.

It will be observed that hooks a size larger
than those employed for floaters can often be
used.

The very short range of hackled patterns is dealt
with later.

OF THE IMPORTANCE OF THE COLOUR OF
TYING SILK IN DUBBED FLIES.

Years ago I spent a week upon the Teme, fishing
wet, and I remember looking down one sunny
morning upon my cast in shallow water, and being
struck by the appearance of my Yellow Dun.
The body was dubbed with primrose wool, but
though, while dry or in the air, every turn of the
tying silk was completely hidden, yet, looking
down upon the fly in the water, I could see every
turn distinctly, and the dubbing was scarcely
noticeable, and I was glad that the tying silk
harmonized so perfectly wth the hue of the
dubbing.

The importance of the base colour of the tying
silk was still more strongly brought home to me a
day or two later. I had tied some imitations of a
pale watery dun which was on the water with a
pale starling wing, light ginger hackle and whisk.

30 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

and a mixture of opossum and hare's poll for
dubbing ; but some I had tied with pale orange
silk, and some with that rich maroon colour called
Red Ant in Mr. Aldam's series of silks. The
grayling took those tied with pale orange freely,
but would not look at those tied with Red Ant.

It maybe of less consequence for floating flies, but
for wet flies I have since always been careful to have
the tying silk either harmonious with the colour
of the natural subimago, or corresponding to the
colour of the spinner. For instance, for an Iron
Blue Dun I should use claret silk dubbed with
mole's fur or water-rat; for the old-fashioned
mole's fur Blue Dun, primrose to heighten the olive
effect in the dark blue ; primrose silk also for a
Hare's Ear ; in the Willow-Fly, orange silk under
the mole's fur or water-rat ; in the Grannom, green
very darkly waxed, or black ; and so on. The fact
is that the transparency of fur and feather is mar-
vellous. A starling's wing looks much denser than
a dun's, but place it over print, and you can read
every word through ; and fur is practically as
transparent when wet,

OF THE IMITATION OF NYMPHS, CADDIS,
ALDER LARViE, AND SHRIMPS.

For some time after my introduction to Tup's
Indispensable I used it only as a dry fly, but one
July I put it over a fish without avail, and cast
it a second time without drying it. It was dressed

SUPPLEMENTARY IN THE MATTER OF FLIES 31

with a soft hackle, and at once went under, and
the trout turned at it and missed. Again I cast,
and again the trout missed, to fasten soundly at
the next offer. It was a discovery for me, and I
tried the pattern wet over a number of fish on
the same shallow, with most satisfactory results.
I thus satisfied myself that Tup's Indispensable
could be used as a wet fly ; and^ indeed, when
soaked its colours merge and blend so beautifully
that it is hardly singular ; and it was a remarkable
imitation of a nymph I got from a trout's mouth.
The next step was to try it on bulging fish, and
to my great delight I found it even more attractive
than Greenwell's Glory. It was the foundation of
a small range of nymph patterns, but for under-
water feeders, whether bulging or otherwise, I
seldom need any tiling but Tup's Indispensable,
dressed with a very short, soft henny hackle in
place of the bright honey or rusty dun used for the
floating pattern. The next I tried was a Blue-
winged Olive. There was a hatch of this per-
nicious insect one afternoon. The floating pattern
is always a failure with me, and in anticipation I
had tied some nymphs of appropriate colour of
body, and hackled with a single turn of the tiniest
blue hackle of the merlin. It enabled me to get
two or three excellent trout which were taking
blue-winged olive nymphs greedily under the
opposite bank, and which, or rather the first of
which, like their predecessors, had refused to

32 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

respond to a floating imitation. The body was a
mixture of medium olive seal's fur and bear's
hair close to the skin, tied with primrose silk, the
whisk being short and soft, from the spade-shaped
feather found on the shoulder of a blue dun cock.

Another pattern, successful in the last two
months of the season, is dressed with a very short
palish-blue dun or honey dun hen's hackle, a body
of hare's poll tied on pale primrose silk, with or
without a small gold tag and palest ginger whisks.
But it is evident that on this subject I am only
at the beginning of inquiry. Of course there is
nothing very new in the idea of imitating nymphs.
The half stone is just a nymph generally ruined
by over- hackling.

In July, 1908, I caught an Itchen fish one after-
noon, and on examining his mouth I found a dark
olive nymph. My fly -dressing materials were
with me, and I found I had a seal's fur which,
with a small admixture of bear's hair, dark
brown and woolly, from close to the skin,
enabled me to reproduce exactly the colours of the
natural insect. I dressed the imitation with short,
soft, dark blue whisks, body of the mixed dubbing
tied with well-waxed bright yellow silk, and
bunched at the shoulder to suggest wing-cases, the
lower part of the body being ribbed with fine gold
wire. Two turns of a very short, dark rusty
dun hackle completed the imitation, much to my
satisfaction.

SUPPLEMENTARY IN THE MATTER OF FLIES 33

Apparently it was no less agreeable to the trout,
for, beginning to fish next morning at ten o'clock,
I found six fish rising on a shallow. I began with
a small Red Sedge, as no dun was yet on the water,
and missed several of them. Then, putting up
Pope's Green Nondescript, I again missed three
fish in succession. I then bethought myself of my
nymph, and, knotting it on, in a few minutes I had
five of the six fish, and had lost the other. I then
found a trout feeding in a run, evidently under
water. I made a miscast at him, and he came a
yard across to take the nymph, but did not take a
good hold, for I lost him, only to secure a better
fish a few moments later. It then came on to
blow and pelt with rain in such sort as to render
it no sort of pleasure to continue fishing, and I
knocked off at eleven o'clock, with three brace
as the result of an hour's fishing.

I have made me a shallow spoon-shaped net of
butterfly-net material to attach to the ring of my
landing-net. It has the advantage of taking any-
thing which comes down the stream, whether on
or under the surface, and its practical use demon-
strates itself in more ways than one. For instance,
in September, 1909, 1 went down to the river about
9.30, and, having put my rod together, sank
my net in the water, and watched for what came
down. There were a number of tiny diptera,
but no trace of dun or nymph. I therefore con-
cluded that it would be some time before the trout

5

34 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

would be lined up under the banks, and that I
could safely go away for an hour, and try certain
carriers where the feeding of fish is not dependent
on the rise. I did this, and put in over an hour's
exciting, if not very remunerative, sport before
returning to the main river. The rise came on
about 11.30. But for my net I might have
wasted all the time on the bank, instead of con-
ducting a siege of three very handsome trout, and
bringing up two of them.

On occasion I have found a Dotterel dun tied
with yellow tying silk on a No. 00 hook, and
hackled with the tiniest dotterel hackle, after the
manner of Stewart {i.e., not hackled all at the
head, but palmer-wise for halfway down the short
body), quite remunerative fished wet. This, I
imagine, is taken for a dun emerging.

But it is not only duns whose nymphal stages
may be imitated. I borrowed a tube containing
some nearly full-grown larvae of the alder, and
though I am given to understand that in this stage
the alder passes the greater part of its existence in
the black mud formed by decaying vegetation, I
made a sort of imitation of them which rather
pleased me, and I tried it in Germany in mid-May.
Whether the trout are or are not familiar with the
natural insect in this stage I cannot say, but they
took the imitation with such avidity that I speedily
wore out my three specimens. They were only
made as an experiment, and I tried no more, as

SUPPLEMENTARY IN THE MATTER OF FLIES 35

I felt qualms in my mind as to whether it was
quite the game to imitate this insect in this stage,
any more than it would be to fish an imitation of
the caddis. I am therefore not giving my recipe.
Nor do I give that for making a caddis or gentle
which I once tried, with mad success for a few
minutes, and gave up, conscience-stricken. I have
since seen alder larvae in a glass tank in the Insect
House at the Zoological Gardens, and, though their
conditions are there no doubt quite artificial, they
were swimming so freely and seemed so much at
home in the water that I think it more than pro-
bable that they venture into the open often enough
to b.e familiar to the trout. The long pale trailing
processes along their sides suggested to me whether
there was not to be found in the alder larvae tlie
prototype of the bumble.

I was at one time greatly interested in an
attempt to imitate the fresh-water shrimp, and I
tied a variety of patterns, including several with
backs of quill of some small bird dyed greenish-
olive, and ribbed firmly while wet and impres-
sionable with silk or gold wire ; but somehow I
never used or attempted to use any one of them.
I, however, gave one to an acquaintance, and he
tied it on, and, standing on a footbridge, cast it
downstream over some trout which were reputed
uncatchably shy. At the first cast a big fish
rushed at the shrimp, slashed it, and went off
leaving the one-time owner lamenting.

5—2

CHAPTER V
SPECIAL CONDITIONS AND WET-FLY SOLUTIONS

NERVES.

Years ago, long ere the spirit of revolt was in me,
when I followed as closely as I knew how the
maxims of the apostles of the dry fly, and knew
no other method for chalk streams, I suffered
many blank days and much depression from a
state of weather and light which must be familiar
to all chalk-stream anglers — the more particularly
because the "d d good-natured" and sympa-
thetic friend who knows nothing of the subject
picks it out to say knowingly : ** What a beautiful
day for fishing !" It is clouded, dull, leaden, over-
hung, and the reflected light on the water is a dead
milk-and-watery white ; while, looking down into
its depths, one sees everything with a deadly and
crystalline clearness. There is no hint of thunder
about, but on such days the trout are all nerves.
Never are they so difficult to approach, never are
they so ready to dart off with that torpedo wave.
And if one finds a rising fish, and puts a dry fly over
him, even if he bolts not, he rises no more.

36

SPECIAL CONDITIONS— WET-FLY SOLUTIONS yj

But at length there came a day when my first
timid experiments in the fishing of chalk streams
with the wet fly had proved encouraging enough
to lead to my having a small stock of wet-fly
patterns for chalk-stream fishing. It was a bad
sample of those days when the nerves of trout
seemed all on the jump, and I had fished from
lo a.m. to 3 p.m. without so much as a rise. It
was not that the fish were not rising. On the
contrary, they rose very well — not very much,
perhaps, but the best days are often those when
the rise is moderate. But this day every fish I cast
to went down at once, and too often I saw that
detestable torpedo wave, sometimes at the ap-
proach, and more frequently at the first cast.

Soon after three I tied on a Tup's Indispensable
dressed on gut, and crawled carefully to within a
long cast of a trout which rose at infrequent
intervals in a narrow side-stream under the opposite
side. My line trailed on the water as I approached,
and I made the minimum of effort to dry the fly ere
I delivered it, so as to attract as little attention as
possible to my movements. So it came about
that the fly, when it lit a yard or more to the left
of and above the trout — it was a bad cast as
regards direction — went immediately under. For
the nih time that day I saw that torpedo wave
as the fish darted through the shallow water. I
rose with a sigh, but as I did so my rod was a
hoop, and the reel screeched; for the trout's dart

38 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

had been at the fly, not from it, and it had gone a
full yard or more to fetch it. He was just short of
one and three-quarter pounds. Before four o'clock
I had another brace by the same method. They
were not easy, and I did not get every fish I tried,
or even many ; but I got some where with the
dry fly I should assuredly have gone on getting
none, and the trout stood to be cast to in a way
they would not that day to the dry fly.

It is true enough that there are days and
times when the dry fly will beat the wet fly hollow,
but there are days when the converse is the case,
and from subsequent experience I can recommend
the trial of the wet fly on those dull, nervy days of
milk-and-watery glare.

OF THE TROUT OF GLASSY GLIDES.

There are places on most rivers where the water
comes swiftly and in solid volume down a slope
too slight in the incline to create a fall, too short
to create a rapid or stickle, and too smooth to
cause a broken surface, yet with a rapid run below.
The result is a glassy glide, gin-clear, with an air
of unusual smoothness, and such a pace that there
is an immediate drag upon any floating fly which
is laid upon the current. Often some of the
handsomest and best fighting trout in the river
are to be found in such places, where their blood
is constantly refreshed by the highly oxygenated
water, their health and energy kept up to the

SPECIAL CONDITIONS— WET-FLY SOLUTIONS 39

mark by the need of contending against its swift-
ness, and the inducement to so contend is present
in the plentiful supply of food brought down by
the current.

Such a glide do I know well, with some excellent
fish always showing there, but never breaking the
surface ; and for years I found them impregnable,
for the simple reason that, if one pitched a fly over
their noses, it was past them before they could
rise to it, and if one pitched it up enough to give
the fish a chance to take it they wouldn't, because
there was a prompt and streaky drag if the line
were, as it could hardly help being, the least little
bit across stream. Even the natural fly would
sail over them unmolested.

But one day some years back, on a calm after-
noon in July, with not a trout rising, I was on the
Itchen, and I had crawled up some half-mile of
sedgy bank in search of a feeding fish without
finding one. But on the far side, in front of a
certain post, the remnant of a one-time fence, I
knew from experience that there was usually a
fish — at any rate at feeding-time. There was
nothing to suggest any particular dry fly, and
on the previous afternoon — a Sunday — I had spent
a pleasant twenty minutes watching a fish in
front of the stump taking something under water
with a sort of porpoise roll. It therefore occurred
to me to put up one of those little Greenwell's
Glories, dressed by Forrest of Kelso on pairs

40 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

of No. 00 hooks to gut, with which the name of
Mr. Ewen M. Tod is associated. I had bought
them in the previous spring to experiment upon
bulging trout. These flies are known as "doubles,"
and are not ready floaters. One puts a thumb-nail
between the barb, and forces them apart till the
two hooks form an angle of 45 degrees with each
other. The fly dropped a yard above the post and
sank. When it should have been nearing the
post, a faint swirl rising to the surface seemed a
sufficient indication of a movement below to
justify a raising of the rod-point, and the fish was
fast. In this manner it came about that a small
Greenwell's Glory on double hooks terminated the
cast when the glassy glide above adverted to was
reached. A trout lay out in it in position to feed,
but though he moved a little from side to side,
and may have been intercepting food, he made no
rise. Keeping well out of sight, I dropped the
Glory on the far side of and in front of the fish, and
it at once went under. Again came the small
disturbance welling quickly to the surface ; up
went my hand, and again a good trout was
fast.

That afternoon I killed two and a half brace of
good fish with the wet fly fished into likely places
without seeing a single rise. The other three fish
—but that is another story.

Since that day I have killed many a good fish in
that hitherto impossible spot, and one morning

SPECIAL CONDITIONS— WET-FLY SOLUTIONS 41

in July, 1908, I had two and a half brace in less
than an hour with a wet double Tup's Indis-
pensable out of it.

OF THE WET FLY IN POOLS, BAYS, AND EDDIES.

There is probably no problem which has filled
the souls of so many dry-fly anglers with the
despair attending defeat as that presented by a
day when a cross-stream wind, whether up and
across, down and across, or straight across, drives
every dun under the opposite bank, and into little
pools and eddies between the prominences on
that bank, and so out of the line of the current
which would otherwise carry them along. Then
every big trout in the river seems to shift out of
the current and into the sheltered bay or eddy,
and there he sets to work collecting with busy neb
the little argosies which have lost their tide, and
are drifting helpless on slack water. It seems so
easy to drop the fly in the right place. So it is,
but if, as is many times more than probable, your
cruiser is away a foot or two, or is deliberate in
his movements, and does not take the fly at once,
your drag has made itself painfully evident, and
your fish is down for half an hour. No, on those
occasions the only chance with the dry fly is to
hit your fish with it on the tip of the nose at a
moment when few naturals are about. Then he
may snap it — but what a number of chances
against its so falling !

6

42 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

No, here is a case in which the wet fly is clearly-
predicated, and it should be so dressed as to go
under without the least hesitation. The advan-
tage which the wet fly has is not that the trout is
taking the nymph in preference to the floating
dun, though he is probably doing that far more
than is apparent, but that, whereas a drag on the
surface is fatal and betrays the gut, an under-
water drag is not betraying, and the movement of
the fly caused by the drag may, in its beginning
at any rate, be even attractive to the trout, as
imparting motion suggesting life and volition to
an otherwise suspicious object. The drag also
serves to tighten instead of slackening the line,
so that a very small strike fixes the hook.

When the trout takes a wet fly in such a position,
the surface indications are by no means obvious ;
but if the angler be on the alert to strike when
such indications come, it is wonderful how soon he
can pick up the knack, and what excellent fish
this method brings him. A strike which does
not touch the fish, being in the nature of an under-
water drawing of the fly, will often have no
scaring effect upon a feeding fish, where a strike
with a floating fly would send him headlong to
cover.

It is difficult to pick among my recollections one
instance more illustrative than another of the
value of this method, but I will take an afternoon
in July, 1908. It was a cold day for the time of

SPECIAL CONDITIONS— WET-FLY SOLUTIONS 43

year, with a keen north-westerly wind across and
a httle down. A few Httle pale duns were going
down, being beaten by the wind into and among
the bays along the opposite bank, where they
dodged in and out among the flags. Three trout,
and three only, could I find moving, and they were
taking every dun which went over them. I tried
Little Marryat, Medium Olive, Flight's Fancy,
Ginger Quill, and Red Quill, in vain. In fact I
put all three down. But they meant feeding, and
were soon going again. It was the last day of a
seven-day visit. I had so far forty-six trout, and
I wanted to round off the fifty. I put up as
an experiment a tiny dotterel hackle, tied with
primrose tying silk in the true Stewart style, not
with the fibres radiating from the head, but palmer-
wise for halfway down the body. The trout had it
at the very first offer, and was dxily landed. I went
on to the next, and got him almost immediately.
The third, for some reason, had no use for Dotterel
duns, but the moment I covered him with a Tup's
Indispensable he slashed it, and joined the other
two in my creel. I looked in vain for a fourth, and
there was no evening rise, so I had to leave off
with but forty-nine of my fifty. But for the
wet fly, I am convinced I should have had to
content myself with the single brace which the
morning rise had brought me, and that would
have been a disappointing ending to a good seven
days.

6—3

44 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM
OF THE JUDICIOUS USE OF THE MOON.

Though bhnder than the proverbial bat in any
slanting light, and therefore not as fortunate as I
should like to be in fishing the evening rise, and
though academically of opinion that fishing should
cease when the dusk no longer lets the angler
discern his fly, I confess to being at least as un-
willing as any better endowed with sight to leave
the water-side while the trout are still busy
sucking down the spinners ; but there are occasions
when, if the moon be up enough to cast black
shadows under the banks, and I can find the
suitable spot with rising fish, I envy no man his
superior eyesight — mine is good enough. Let me
illustrate my meaning by describing the occasion
on which I made my little discovery.

It was an evening in July. I had not begun
fishing before four o'clock, and the afternoon had
only earned me a single trout, and he no great
shakes, either. The evening rise came on, and
the trout began to feed briskly ; but my infirmity
was against me, and I missed or misjudged several
rises, and it began to look as if I were going to
make nothing of my opportunity, when I came
to a bend where the current swung in pitch-black
shadow under the opposite bank, while between
the near edge of the shadow and my bank the
stream ran molten moonlight. Round the bend
in the dark I could hear the trout feeding away

SPECIAL CONDITIONS— \VET-FLY SOLUTIONS 45

gaily, and the rings of their rises surged into the
silver of the lighted current.

It seemed a mad thing to do, but I despatched
my Tup's Indispensable to a spot in the dark as
near as I could judge above the ring of a good
fish. My cast lay like a hair on the surface, stretch-
ing into the dark, not too taut. Suddenly I saw
my gut draw straight upon the current, the farther
end disappearing under the sheen of the moonlight,
and, without waiting to think, I raised my rod-
point, to find myself in battle with a solid fish.
Thrice in the twenty minutes the rise lasted did I
repeat this experience. Each trout was soundly
hooked, and a nice level lot they were, running
from one and a quarter to one and a half pounds.
Thus was success at the last moment pulled by a
fluke out of almost certain defeat. It is not always
possible to find place and light serving in this
way, but if you do, make use of the moon.

THE WET-FLY OIL TIP.

In my observations upon the judicious use of the
moon, I indicated the advantage to be derived, in
cases where the light prevented the rise from being
otherwise detected in due time, from watching the
gut cast as a float signalling the taking of the fly.
Indeed, it is not only by night that the cast may
be watched with advantage, but often by day when
casting a fly, wet or dry, but especially wet, into
a bad light, while the cast or part of it may be

46 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

seen floating on a glassy piece of water. It is now
some years since, in the columns of the Fishing
Gazette, I called attention to what I described as
the "wet-fly oil tip" in this connection. I take
no credit for this invention. It belongs entirely
to Mr. C. A. M. Skues, the secretary of the Fly-
fishers' Club, and its discovery came about in
this way :

We were fishing opposite banks of a German
trout stream, the Erlaubnitz, and the day rise
of fly was over. The trout, which had been
hovering over their pockets in the weeds and in
the runs between them, had dropped out of sight,
and it was obvious that it would need something
to attract them more noticeable than the pale
watery duns which were the staple of the season.
We agreed upon Soldier Palmers tied with bright
scarlet seal's fur. Presently the far bank began
catching them, though he was fishing upstream
wet in rather fast water. I hailed him, and he
said he had paraffined his gut cast to within the
last two links from the fly and watched his cast.
I was not above a hint, and in a minute or two I
was experiencing the benefit of the wet-fly oil tip,
and we were kept busy till six o'clock brought on
the usual rise of Little Pale Blue of Autumn, and
a change to floating patterns. It also involved a
change of cast, for a cross-stream cast with oiled
gut betrays you with a vile drag. It is a dis-
advantage of paraffining your gut that it limits

SPECIAL CONDITIONS— WET-FLY SOLUTIONS 47

you to one cast — viz., that directly upstream.
But there are times when it is well to accept
the limitation.

OF GENERALSHIP AND THE WET FLY.

There is a bend on Itchen where the water runs
deep and black. Over the best of it hang three
large trees, under which, if trout be rising any-
where on the river, they will be found pegging
away, and often when they are moving nowhere
else. The place is near the spot where anglers
foregather for lunch and a pull at pipe or flask ;
so the fish under these trees are hammered more
than a little, and their knowledge is in direct pro-
portion to their experience. Here, too, anglers
usually take apart their split canes in the evening,
and, ere they do so, have one last chuck in the
dusk with Sedge, Coachman, or large Red Quill at
one or all of these rising trout, but it is the rarest
thing for one to be caught. I have caught six of
them in fifteen years. Perhaps it is because to
cover them one must fish straight across from the
opposite bank — no other attack is possible — and
they can hardly fail to see rod and angler.

But it fell about in the year of grace 1909 that
my lawful occasions took me along the right bank,
on which the trees grew, past the haunt of these
aggravating risers, and I took the occasion to
observe. None of them were moving at the time,
and the water was lower by some inches than the

48 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

normal. I looked in the place where the best of
the risers was usually present when attending to
business, but he was not there. Four or five yards
farther upstream the bottom, from being shallow,
dipped suddenly to the deep, with a sharp brown
earthy edge, and there, lying in shelter from the
current under the earthy ledge at the head of the
hole, lay a trout which I put down at a comforting
two pounds. He saw me, and slithered into his
fastness, but I did not forget the hint. Many
times had I cast to that trout when rising, but
always under a tree some yards below. Now I
would cast to him when not rising, and I would
fish him in his hide. The lowest of a small cohort
of ribbon-weeds craning their tips gently over the
surface indicated the neighbourhood of the lip of
the hole, and, scanning the opposite side carefully,
I marked the exact bunch of yellow flower from
behind which I ought to deliver my cast, and
marked on the hither bank a bunch of purple
hemlock which indicated the centre of the hole.

Later in the day from the opposite bank I sent
over a wet Tup's Indispensable to the weed's edge
several times without avail.

The next time I came down the fish was rising
to surface food, and I left him severely alone.
My time was to be when he was not rising, for no
trout seems able to resist a nymph at any time,
even if not feeding, and a nymph of sorts he should
have. Coming back later, I found stillness reign-

SPECIAL CONDITIONS— WET-FLY SOLUTIONS 49

ing ; so, mounting a Tup's Indispensable, I soaked
it well, and flicked it over to the edge of the weeds.
It lit, and went under, leaving the gut for the
most part along the surface. The gut drifted
down, the fly end slowly shpping under the upper
film. The fly was withdrawn and the cast re-
peated. Once more the gut lay along the surface ;
once more it slipped slowly through to a point ;
then it seemed to move under with a certain
decision. I raised my rod-point with a drawing
action, and the trout which had defied ten thou-
sand dry flies was on. He wasn't quite two pounds,
but it doesn't matter. It was generalship which
got him, which discerned that in his holt he was
possibly accessible to the seductions of the casual
nymph-suggesting wet fly in a way in which he
was not accessible to the temptations of the too
well known dry fly in the place of vantage where
he daily fed.

A POTTED TROUT, AND ONE OTHER.

When the drowners are out in the water-
meadows flushing the ditches till they flood the
tables and drench the grasses with water seeking
its way back through the herbage to the river by
way of ditch, drain, and carrier, the wise old trout
who know their business may be found in narrow
ditches and channels down to foot-wide runnels in
search of the earthworm and the miscellaneous
pickings of the grasslands. Again, when July

7

50 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

comes round, and the season of minnowing is indi-
cated, the big trout once more make their way, in
search of minnows, into the narrower irrigation
channels of the water-meadows. So ardent are
they at times in pursuit of their quarry that on
occasion it is possible to net them out without their
becoming aware of their danger.

On one occasion I got three good trout thus from
behind at one scoop of the landing-net, and turned
them back into the main.

Often, if they get into a channel with a constant
flow and a steady food-supply, trout will not care
to drop back to the river, and will take up a
position of strength, where, inaccessible to the fly
of the angler, they daily increase in size and lusti-
hood. Such potted fish are almost entirely sub-
aqueous feeders, a floating dun rarely crossing
their field of vision. They grow dark and copper-
coloured, and very unHke the fish of the river from
which they hail.

One such fish do I remember, who took up his
holt in the eddy just above a hatch-hole, through
which ran the whole of a brisk stream some two to
two and a half feet wide, turning at right angles to
do so, after impinging on his eddy as on a sort of
water-buffer. It was not hard to approach the
place without being seen, but the moment one
looked over the edge his troutship would flash
down through the hatch-hole and into the racing
stream beneath. Several times I mounted a

SPECIAL CONDITIONS— WET-FLY SOLUTIONS 51

Sedge, tied on a No. 2 hook attached to a strong
cast, and dibbed cautiously over the edge. Once
I caught a companion trout of one pound five
ounces, but on all other occasions the attempt
was fruitless.

Tired at length of these failures, and not pleased
that such a trout as our friend of the hatch-hole
eddy should give no sport to the fly, one afternoon
I approached the hatch-hole from below, slid down
my wide and large landing-net into the thrust of
the stream, and looked suddenly over into the
eddy. There was a brown flash to the hole, and
next moment the trout was kicking in the net —
black hogback with red copper sides and gleaming
white belly, two and a half pounds, and as fat as
a pig. Swiftly I conveyed him the needful fifty
yards or so to a side-stream some ten or twelve
yards wide, and turned him carefully loose. He
made no pretence of being scared, but moved
leisurely away across and up stream. I watched
him cross a patch of weeds and enter a gravelled
clearing, where a tidy trout lay, butt him out of
it, and establish himself in his place. In a few
moments he moved up into the next place,
butted out the brace of trout which occupied it,
and took the position of vantage. He did not
remain long, but moved to the next pool, again
ejecting the occupants.

Still dissatisfied, he moved higher up to where
the stream was narrowed by camp-sheathing to

7—2

52 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

support a low wooden bridge over which carts pass
to carry the meadow hay. Here he ejected the
three or four occupants, and estabhshed himself
finally, with his neb close up under the sill of the
bridge — too close for a fly to be got in ahead of
him — obviously with the key of the larder in his
pocket ; and here daily for the next five days of
my stay I saw him firmly planted, but, though I
plied him with Sedge, and Quill, and Tup's Indis-
pensable, wet fly and dry fly, I never got an offer
or an indication of a desire to offer from him, nor
did I ever see him break the surface, and I left
him in situ at the end of my visit.

During these five days, however, crossing from
the smaller stream to the main, I saw a trout in
a foot-wide runnel hovering with that quivering
of the fins that indicates a willingness to feed.
He was not a big fish — about one pound — but I
thought it would be sport to try and cast to him
and catch him in so narrow a channel, and I knelt
down to deliver the fly. He saw me, however,
and moved up. It was on my way 'cross meadow
to the main, so I followed him till I came to the
place where the runnel's water-supply issued from
a pipe which entered its head, at right angles to
its course, from the centre of one of the tables.
The flow from the pipe had worried out a corner
hole, which was wide and deep enough to admit
my whole landing-net and a bit over, and I dipped
it in. I saw the amber gleam of my trout as he

SPECIAL CONDITIONS— WET-FLY SOLUTIONS 53

slashed by me and fled back down the runnel he
had ascended, but wriggling in the net which I
lifted was a bouncing fish, black, hogbacked, with
copper sides and white belly, in first-rate fettle,
and weighing better, at a guess, than one and a
half pounds, evidently an old inhabitant of that
corner. The main was but a few yards off, and
I carefully turned in my captive.

Two days later I was fishing up the bank of the
main in blazing sunshine, searching for a rising
fish, but finding none, when my attention was
attracted by a movement in the water close under
my bank some ten or fifteen yards above the spot
where I turned the trout in. I dropped my wet
Greenwell's Glory a foot or so from the spot, and,
answering the draw of the floating gut signalling
some under-water adhesion, I tightened on a nice
fish, and after the usual preliminary exhibition of
coyness, emphasized by sundry jumpings, I per-
suaded him to come ashore. The spring-balance
said one pound ten ounces. Colour, size, and shape,
were identical with the trout I had turned back
two days before, and though, of course, I cannot
prove it, I have no doubt he was the same.

Now, why did one of these potted trout take the
fly, and the other refuse ? This is my theory :
Both had got the exclusive habit of subaqueous
feeding, but the big one had his nose in a position
where it was impossible to get a wet fly to him
so as to pitch above him, or even alongside of his

54 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

head, and the water was too fast for it to be worth
the while of a fish of his cahbre to turn and follow
a mere nymph. The smaller fish was in a position
to be covered, and the moment the nymph came
to him under water he had it as a matter of course.
Possibly, in the same position the larger trout
might have done the same.

OF TWO SATURDAY AFTERNOONS.

They were consecutive. Both were in August,
1909, and the reason why they are recorded is not
because of any remarkable success, but because
they illustrate varying conditions on the same
river, proving amenable to varying treatment.

The first found me by the water-side soon after
two o'clock. The morning rise was completely
over. Not even a grayling was rising. The water
was deadly still. A full stream was running,
because the hay-makers were in the meadows, and
no water that could be kept out was being let into
ditches and carriers ; so it was no good exploring
them for stray risers, as at other times I might
have done. For some time I explored likely
places under the sedges with floating flies — No. i
Red Sedge with hare's-ear body, Red Ant, and
Tup's Indispensable — but without eUciting the
faintest response. Then about five o'clock I put
up a wet Greenwell's Glory, and cast it upstream,
wet, into every little likely pool between the bank
and the weed-bed which grew intermittently a

SPECIAL CONDITIONS— WET-FLY SOLUTIONS 55

yard or two out from the bank. The change was
immediate. By six o'clock I had three and a half
brace of average fish (biggest one pound ten
ounces), all on the same fly. Fish would surge a
yard or more to meet it, would even turn down-
stream and take it, though the floating fly had
not moved a single one to offer. There was no
evening rise.

The following Saturday I was down at the same
time. There was the same faint westerly breeze,
and much the same light. A few — ^very few —
grayling were taking black gnats for a short time
after my arrival, but they soon stopped entirely,
and I had only one in my basket. Not a rise
dimpled the surface. I continued, however, cast-
ing a Black Gnat under my own bank — the right —
for some forty or fifty yards, without an offer. I had
the mortification of seeing three handsome trout
move out from position, and I was just about to
change to a Hare's Ear Sedge when I saw a grass-
moth flutter out of the sedges and across the water.
As luck would have it, I had four floating Grannom
in my cap, and it didn't take long to knot one on.

In a few minutes I was into a trout, which took
as the fly lit. I landed him, and then another,
and yet a further brace, every one of which took
the Grannom without the least hesitation. Then
I found myself trenching on the beat of another
angler, and I bethought me that the three fish I
had disturbed might be back in position ; so I

56 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

turned down, and, getting below them, cast care-
fully to where they ought to be. I whipped one
fly off ; then with the new fly I rose the first of
them — quite a nice fish — hooked him, and lost
him after a short tussle. Examining the hook, I
found it pulled out nearly straight owing to a soft
wire. Whether that rattled me or not I don't
know, but I left my two remaining Grannom in
the other two fish successively. Having no more,
I fell back on the Sedge in vain. Equally vain
were Red Ant (dry) and Greenwell's Glory and
Tup's Indispensable (wet), and, as there was no
evening rise, I finished up with a basket of two
and a half brace, which with better handling
should have been four brace.

On each of these afternoons there was no rise
of fish or fly ; and on one nothing but a floating
pattern did any good, on the other nothing but
a sunk pattern.

The inference that I might have gone back
blank on the first occasion but for the supple-
mental aid of the wet-fly method does not seem
far-fetched.

CHAPTER VI

UNCLASSIFIED

OF HOVERING AND SOARING, AND OF CRUISING
TROUT.

The trout that is glued to the bottom is generally
a pretty hopeless fish. He is either not willing to
feed, or, being willing, his suspicions have been
aroused and he has gone down. Pretty stories
are told of how such fish are occasionally startled
into taking by the fly being slammed down with
violence on or just behind their heads, but no such
instance has come within my experience.

But the trout which is hovering in mid- water
or near the surface is always a hopeful subject.
Anglers will tell you he is willing to feed. In my
belief, he is more than that ; he is generally actively
feeding — under water.

I remember a trout which lay in the same hole
with six grayling. He was hovering not far below
the surface, but would have nothing to say to a
series of dry flies of appropriate pattern oifered
him ; but a wet Greenwell's Glory was too much
for him, and he turned and took it first cast. He

57 8

58 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

was undoubtedly feeding on nymphs, but not over
weed, and so not bulging ; yet he presented only
the appearance of hovering, or, as Walton generally
calls it, " soaring."

Another likely fish is the cruiser on his way to
his feeding-station. If I see a wedge-shaped ripple
advancing irregularly upstream, and broken at
times by a dimple in the centre, I always feel
hopeful, and I know that such trout are nearly
always of unusual size for the water. It is, of
course, difficult to place the fly exactly ; but if
that difficulty is overcome, your trout will take
it most unsuspiciously. The best course is
to throw to one side and a little ahead of the
last rise.

A more difficult proposition is the cruiser who
has a small defined beat. You find him moving
up the bank in such wise that every cast is short
of his rise ; but suddenly, if you are not ware, you
will find that he has turned and sailed down-
stream to the bottom of his beat, and that your
rod and line are absolutely over him. Such a
trout seems always fastidious and picksome, but
it is all the more gratifying to circumvent him.
He is usually taking toll of insects collected in
eddies, and a spinner of sorts is more likely
to take him than a dun ; but he will often
rush for a fly that is being withdrawn under
water.

UNCLASSIFIED 59

OF THE PORPOISE ROLL.

There is one peculiarly irritating kind of rise in
which trout indulge. Just like porpoises, they
come up, and, scarcely breaking the surface with
the head, expose first the back fin and then the
tail as they go down. Often of an afternoon or
evening it seems as if every trout in the river were
busy at this game. The difficulty is to know, on
such occasions, what they are taking. ** Detached
Badger" (p. 119 of " Dry-Fly Fishing ") suggests
larvae, but though at times I have caught fish thus
rising with sunk flies, I am inclined to doubt their
taking nymphs or larvae, and to suspect spinners.
This (even if the trout be taking nymphs) is not
properly described as " bulging," that term being
confined to the swashing rises when a fish rushes to
and fro, making visible waves, ending in a boil as
it turns in the act of fielding the subaqueous insect.
Fortunately, this porpoise type of rise is rare, for
when trout indulge in it sport is consistently bad.
I have been promising myself for the last two or
three seasons that, when I drop on such a rise, I
will try Mr. F. M. Halford's spent spinner patterns,
but in an average number of days' fishing I have
failed to drop on an occasion when the trout have
been thus rising.

CHAPTER VII
SUNDRY CONSIDERATIONS

OF THE RELATION OF PATTERN TO THE POSITION
OF TROUT, AND HEREIN OF THE TAKING OFF
OF WARY WILLY.

It is perhaps a small matter which is treated under
this head, but anything which helps the angler to
a correct selection of fly is so much to the good,
and the point I want to make here is that the
haunt of a fish is an item to be taken note of in
deciding what items to put upon the menu to be
offered for his selection. For instance, if your
trout be in position in the middle of a fairly wide
stream, and that be his habitual post, it is practi-
cally little good giving him an imitation of any
insect which haunts the bank only, such as alder
in its season, sedge, grass-moth, or willow-fly,
which, on the other hand, may be tried in their
season, with every prospect of success, upon fish
under the banks.

Well do I remember how marked this rule was
in its application on a day in September, 1903, on
a German limestone river. In the middle the

60

SUNDRY CONSIDERATIONS 6i

willow-fly, which was out in quantity that day,
was no good. The trout wanted duns, and willow-
flies were no use to them, or probably there, away
from the banks, were practically unknown ; but
under the alder and willow-fringed banks on either
side the trout took the spent willow-fly freely,
and, of thirty-seven trout, no less than thirty-four
fell that day to the willow-fly under the banks,
but not one from mid-river. Many a time the
trout will take a sedge or an imitation of the grass-
moth under the banks when quite shy of them in
midstream. In connection with this I may
record an incident which is framed in my mind as
the strange disappearance of Wary Willy.

Wary Willy was almost a public character. He
inhabited a club water not far from Winchester,
and was always at his post when duty called. But
he was of an obliging turn of mind, and always
ready to show sport to the new-comer who might
be tempted to put a fly over him. Yet it was not
for nothing that he had earned his name, for, though
many had risen him, none was recorded as having
hooked him. His holt was under a grassy bank
(right of the river), about three yards above the spot
where a willow stump extended a solitary branch at
right angles to the current, a foot above and about
two yards out into the stream, so that any angler
who paid his respects to William had to send his
invitation across the willow-bough, a state of
things which led to dif&culties and language for the

62 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

angler, and to an amused retreat on the part of
Willy. Yet a short time later he would be back
at his post, adding to his collection of the
Ephemeridae with undiminished zest.

I was not a member of the club, but I paid a
visit to a friend who had a rod, and he very good-
naturedly insisted on my trying his nine-foot
Leonard over Wary Willy, and he brought me to the
place. I had no tackle with me, so I had to use my
friend's floating flies. The wind was light and in
the right direction, and I got my fly over the
branch nicely and covered him several times, and
as I let my reel-line drop on the water below the
branch the current carried my fly back successfully
a number of times ; but at length I was hung up,
and when I tried to release myself Willy had
business elsewhere.

On this water the club members and the
keepers said that sedges were no use. It was
a dun and spinner water only. So when in
the afternoon I met the head-keeper, and saw
a small Red Sedge in his cap, I made no bones
of asking for it, as it was of no use. Borrow-
ing the Leonard once more, I tied on the Red
Sedge, and stole up cautiously to Willy's abode.
But just ere I got to position a fish rose to the
right of his place, about three yards out from the
bank. I did not wish him to scare Willy, so, to
get him out of the way first, I dropped the sedge
upon his nose, and he had it immediately. He

SUNDRY CONSIDERATIONS 63

was very indignant at the imposition that had
been put upon him, and turned several somersaults
in the air, and altogether put up quite a good fight
for a fish of his ounces, which numbered twenty-
five, before my friend's landing-net received him.
I had, however, steered him carefully, so that
his antics should not disturb William, and I
approached that worthy's holt with a modest con-
fidence that William stood in the way of getting
a surprise. But William was not there. William
never came back. He couldn't. He was dead,
and in my friend's landing-net. But it was several
days before remorse began to work in me, for it
was not till a week or so later that my friend told
me of the disappearance of Wary Willy. But
Willy had always been fished with duns. He
knew all the patterns of Holland and Chalkley and
Ogden Smith, but never had he had cause to suspect
the genuineness of a sedge — and so, good-bye Willy !

OF THE USE OF SPINNERS DURING THE RISE OF
DUNS, AND HEREIN OF THE VAGARIES OF THE
BLUE-WINGED OLIVE.

" The Red Quill," says Mr. F. M. Halford, " is
one of the sheet-anchors of the dry-fly fisherman
on a strange river when in doubt." Never was a
truer word spoken. Mr. Englefield of Winchester,
I believe, conducted the experiment of confining
himself to the Red Quill (in a variety of sizes and
shades, and with and without the addition of gold
and silver tags) for a whole season, and did as

64 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

well with the one fly as in other seasons with a
larger selection. And it is a remarkable fact that
the Red Quill, bearing more resemblance to a Red
Spinner than to a dun, will frequently kill during a
rise of duns as well as, or better than, quite a good
imitation of the dun itself. It will also be found
that during the rise of any kind of dun its spinner
will often take as well as, if not better than, the
subimago pattern. For instance, a Red Spinner
during a rise of olives, a Claret Spinner when the
iron-blue dun is on, and a Sherry Spinner when
the blue- winged olive is on.

All the spinners do not die and fall spent on
the water over night. Some come on to the water
in the cool of the early morning, and if the angler
tries in the hot weather for an early morning trout,
the spinner may be commended to him as giving
him his best chance, so far as floating patterns
are concerned. And when, before the rise comes
on, an odd fish or so may be found in position
putting up occasionally at something, spinners
may legitimately be suspected. Therefore it may
be that, when the rise comes on, the memory of a
recent acquaintance with more delicious morsels
than the current duns leads to a readiness on his
part to absorb the floating imitation spinner.

The blue-winged olive is a large and handsome
fly, and its hatch is usually an evening matter,
though I have seen it at all hours of the day. But
when it is on, and there are other duns at the same

SUNDRY CONSIDERATIONS 65

time, it is always possible to distinguish the trout
which are taking the blue-winged olive by the
curious shape of the boil they make in taking it ;
a kidney-shaped boil, with two distinct whorls
right and left. And if the angler is provided with
Orange Quills on No. i hooks, and will pick out
these fish, he may count on sport worth remember-
ing, though possibly not a spinner may be on the
water at the time. Curiously enough, such a thing
as a good imitation of the blue-winged olive in
the subimago form has yet to be invented.
Patterns are tied which will kill an occasional
trout, but the Orange Quill, if the rise be anything
like a good one, means three or four brace, and
probably all big fish.

One evening, June 24 in 1908, I ran down
to Winchester by the 6.50 train to see Eton
V. Winchester on the next day, and I got down
there about eight o'clock. I had not meant to
fish overnight, but I thought there was time for a
cast before the dusk drew in, and I picked up a nine-
foot Leonard and a landing-net, stuck a damper
with a cast in my pocket, and a small box of flies,
and got down to a broad shallow. I found several
fish rising, and at once diagnosed the blue-winged
olive. So I tied on a large Orange Quill and
cast to the nearest. Up he came, and was off
with a flounder. Without losing a moment, I
covered the next with the ensuing cast. The
same thing occurred, and I promptly dropped my

9

66 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

next cast a yard to the right over the third fish.
He, too, came up and fastened. He went straight
to weed, but, holding him quite lightly, I soon
had the satisfaction of feeling him beat himself
free of the weeds, and presently I netted him out.
The fly was quite soaked, and I tried to change it,
but it was too dark, and so I knocked off, having
risen three trout to the Orange Quill in three
successive casts.

Some years ago I dressed for my friend, M. Louis
Bougie, of Paris and the Fly-fishers' Club, a winged
imitation of the blue-winged olive, which is at
certain seasons almost the only dun on the chalk
streams of Normandy, and he can kill an occa-
sional fish on it. Its dressing is immaterial, for I
never could do any good with it myself ; but one
evening I was fishing the Varennes with M. Bougie,
when there came on a good fall of blue-winged olive
spinner. My friend caught a trout with his
pattern, and by the aid of a spoon I got from its
stomach, and turned into a glass, three large
greenish-amber spinners, with the distinctive three
setae ; and next morning in a capital light I tied
an imitation of these insects, spent-gnat-wise,
with seal's fur body of palish yellow-green olive of
appropriate mixture of furs. Next evening we
each got fish with these imitations, M. Bougie
more than I, and I have always been promising
myself that I will put it up one blue-winged
olive evening on the Hampshire rivers; but

SUNDRY CONSIDERATIONS 67

when the occasion has come, and that distinc-
tive rise is seen, I have never been able to
resist taking the Orange Quill rather than the
spent olive pattern out of the box where they
repose together. It is hard to resist three or
four brace.

OF GENERAL FEEDERS, AND HEREIN OF THE
UNDOING OF AUNT SALLY.

There are places in most rivers — generally, I
think, about the spots most frequented by man —
where trout establish themselves, which seem,
though willing enough to take duns as they come,
to be independent of them as a staple food, and
to take gaily every day and all day long, and
often far into the night, whatever fly-food comes
along, always excepting, bien entendu, the angler's
flies, however delicately offered. Such trout are
readily put off their feed, but not for long, and
the angler, returning to the spot after a short
absence, may make up his mind to find his friend
back in position, pegging away as freely as
ever. Everyone has a chuck at these fish —
no one can resist them ; but it is a rare thing
for one to be caught — and the Coachman
may account for a few. A strong ruffle in the
water may enable you to take one unaware,
but, generally speaking, the ordinary tactics,
whether dry-fly or wet, are thrown away on such
fish, and the only chance is to fall back on some-

9—2

68 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

thing exceptional either in lure or in method of
attack, or both.

Followeth the example of

The Undoing of Aunt Sally.

She was called Aunt Sally because everyone
felt bound to have a shy at her. Her coign of
vantage was near the bottom of the water, where
the fishery begins, and her irritating " pip, pip,"
as she took fly after fly in the culvert that was her
home was too much for the nerves of nine anglers
out of ten, so that the absurdest efforts to circum-
vent her were made daily — efforts to float a dry
upwinged dun down the culvert from the top :
result, immediate and irremediable drag ; efforts
to flick a fly upstream to her in the culvert from
below : result, broken rod-tops, barbless hooks,
flies flicked off against the brickwork, and other
disasters, leading to profanity.

The locus in quo was a stream in the South of
England, flowing some fifteen yards or so wide at
a good even pace, with a nice purl on it, down to
and past a deep hole used for bathing by the
farmers' lads. From this hole, a culvert in the
left bank, a yard wide and, say, four yards long,
diverts a considerable body of the stream into a
new channel, to drive a mill in the town below.
This was the fastness in which Aunt Sally had
taken up her abode, and throughout the spring
and summer had defied all efforts to dislodge her.

SUNDRY CONSIDERATIONS 69

It was my first visit to the stream that year, and
from 9 a.m. till 3 p.m. on an August day I had
worked away for meagre results. There was no
rise of fly after ten o'clock, and a strong rise of
water-rats. Three trout had I turned over, and one
of one pound two ounces reposed in my bag. I had
not seen a rising fish for hours, when, weary and
disappointed, I drifted down the right bank to the
bottom of the fishery, and sat down to rest on the
steps which are set in the hole to assist bathers in
clambering out.

" Pip !" I heard coming from somewhere. I
looked upstream, I looked under my own bank,
but not a sign of a ring was to be seen. " Pip,
pip !" again. At last, leaning low and looking
through the culvert, I saw, some two yards down,
what I took to be a dimple of a rising fish. Watch-
ing a few moments, I saw it repeated, and my
spirits revived. My point was fine, so I took it off
and knotted on a yard of sound Refina gut, and
ended it with a brown beetle with peacock's herl
body and red legs. I soaked him well, so that
there should be no drag on the surface, and then,
getting my length for the other side, let the fly
and gut drag in the stream till the moment I made
my cast. Fly and gut together struck the brick
face of the culvert, and fell in a heap at the mouth.
Instantly the current caught the fly and gut, and
extended it down the culvert. Almost at the
same moment the current of the main stream,

70 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

across which my reel-Hne lay, began to drag upon
it, and completed the extension of the gut by the
time the beetle had run a short two yards down the
culvert. At once it began to drag back. This
was too much for Aunt Sally — to have that
beetle scuttling from her when it was almost in
her mouth. She came at it, and in a flash secured
it ere it could escape from the culvert ; and before
she could turn she was skull-dragged out of her
fastness and turned down into the stream below.
She made a determined fight for it, but she was
very soundly hooked, and I gave no needless law,
so that her fifteen inches were soon laid out upon
the grass. Not knowing of her fame, I was quite
content with her one pound eleven ounces ; but an
angler who told me of her reputation said she had
always been put down as a much bigger fish. An
hour later I looked down the culvert again, but
the water had dropped some inches, and there was
not enough current through the culvert to make
it fishable. I had hit the happy moment for the
undoing of Aunt Sally.

OF ATTENTION TO CASUAL FEEDERS.

The happening fish is a godsend to the angler
whom time or trains, failure to find the taking
fly, or other act of God or the King's enemies,
have prevented from making his basket during the
main hatch of duns. By the " happening fish " is
to be understood, not the chance riser to a chance

SUNDRY CONSIDERATIONS 71

cast, but the trout which, by reason of a larger
stomach capacity, misfortune of position, shortage
of fly, disinclination for the society of tailers, or
the pursuit of the succulent shrimp, or neglect
of his opportunities during the main rise, is left
hungry, or at least hungry enough not to have
left off feeding after — often long after — the main
rise has faded out ; and also the trout whose
hearty appetite ranges him under the bank in
advance of the rise, in a state of impatience for his
meal, which leads him to sample such hors d'ceuvres
as the stream may bring his way. For reasons
which shall be made apparent, both of these classes
of trout offer themselves an easier prey to the
angler than the trout who is busy with a steady
diet of hatching duns. It is doubtful whether
the advice often tendered to the over-eager, to
allow the rising trout to get well set at the wicket,
is really sound, as, by the time he is well set, his
appreciation of what is offered him has become
greatly sharpened by a prolonged experience of
it as it should be, and he is as likely as not to
refuse anything that does not appeal to him as
being identical with the natural insect he has
been absorbing so much of ; and I know no
more hkely fish to take, if you get your fly
to him right, than a trout which is cruising up
to his feeding-ground, picking a fly or two on
the way. Freely I confess that whole rises have
passed me too many a time without my having

72 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

succeeded in ascertaining what the trout would
take, and on such days — and again on days
when trains have borne me to the water tpo late
for the morning rise — I might frequently, but for
my friend the casual feeder, have brought home
a toom creel.

The places where the casual feeder is to be found
at home are various ; but, speaking generally,
the casual feeder's position depends on the nature
of the fare which the time of day affords him, and
the odds are long that from the end of May, when
the first of the sedges (the so - called Welsh-
man's Button — the *'Dun Cut" of the fathers of
angling) comes upon the water, that position will
be found under the banks where sedge-flies and
other bank insects most do congregate, and from
which they venture upon the water ; at bridges
where a constriction of the current concentrates
the food ; at bridges where spinners are apt to
dance until their dancing minutes be done, and
sedges often shelter in brickwork ; at hatches
where woodlice and other insects harbour in the
wood, and are prone to drop into the current ; in
pockets in the weeds ; and in ditches and carriers
where the hatch of duns is sparse and unsatis-
factory, and a trout must rely upon other re-
sources for his daily sustenance. This may be
floating or subaqueous, but is more likely in
carriers and swift waters to be subaqueous, inas-
much as it is only for a brief period that a hatch

SUNDRY CONSIDERATIONS 73

takes place ; but subaqueous forms of fly-life are
always about (though, no doubt, sparsely at other
times than that of the rise), and experience proves
that when no definite rise is in progress, no trout
that is on the alert finds it easy to resist a nymph
who has left his shelter. Hence, given the
wilHngness of the trout to feed, and the absence of
a steady diet of dominant attractiveness, there
is every inducement for him to be of an open
mind as to the provender that will seduce
him.

Then there is our friend the " tailer," of whom
more elsewhere.

Thus, instead of spiking his rod when the morning
rise is over, and taking his Walton or his Marcus
Aurelius or his Omar Khayyam from his pocket, let
the wise angler concentrate on the casual feeder ;
and if his reward be not great, there is every
chance of its being quite respectable, and he may
be saved the humiliation of an empty creel.

OF THE FREQUENTATION OF DITCHES, DRAINS, AND
CARRIERS.

I know of no sight more gloomy than that of a
golfer painfully tramping from shot to shot. But
perhaps the next gloomiest sight is the angler who,
with perhaps but a single day at his disposal,
lounges hour by hour by the side of the main river,
waiting with such patience as he can muster for
the rise which comes not. Let us suppose that

10

74 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

he is either unable or too magnanimous to fish the
wet fly, that there are no fish lying, either visibly
or inferentially, in convenient places under his
own bank, so that they could be fished to with a
dry sedge or a Red Quill. Let him come with me,
and we will pull some sport out of adverse con-
ditions. Let us begin here, where this hatch is
letting a goodly supply of water into this carrier
for the watering of the meadows. Be it known
unto you, O angler, that the trout of ditches and
carriers are far less affected by the rise of duns,
and far readier to feed at all times or any time,
than those fish of the main river. Here our choice
is to fish either a sunk fly, suggesting a nymph
(for here an upwinged dun can hardly get through
undrowned), a floating fly resembling one of the
sedges which dodge about the camp-sheathing or
a good-sized Wickham's Fancy. Search all the
tail of the run carefully with one or the other of
these patterns, and it shall go hard with you if you
do not get a chance, at any rate, from a passable
fish — possibly more than one.

A little lower down the carrier runs through a
culvert, and, if the hay-makers have not got him
out, one is likely to find quite a respectable trout
just below the arch, and he is to be had if you
fish him right. Farther down there is a low wood
bridge, through which the stream flows briskly,
and below this there are usually two or three
feeding fish. For some reason these are specially

SUNDRY CONSIDERATIONS 75

sensitive to shadow. I have had many fish from
this spot from both sides^ but never one from the
right, or west, side after two o'clock, or from the
other side before two. Having fished these fish,
and caught or lost or put them down, let us move
over to the next piece of water. It is slow, and
has little weed. If it had been a day with a ruffle
of wind, or had the drowners turned a good current
through, we would have fished it up yard by yard ;
but to-day it is no good. But here, a bit farther on,
a brisk stream runs through a little hatch, and for a
hundred and fifty yards or so makes a most merry
little length. Keep low in the long grass, fish it
foot by foot, and, so far as you can, turn down all
the fish you scare. If you send one up, sit down
and wait. It will not be long ere the others recover
their equanimity. On a good day you should get
your two brace from this length, either with
No. I Red Sedge, No. i Red Quill, No. o Pink
Wickham or No. o Tup's Indispensable wet, or
No. o Wickham' s Fancy. Now let us wind up
along another brisk little piece of water, perhaps
fifteen feet wide, which races in a series of runs,
and stretches right across the meadows. It is known
as the Highland Burn, and it is full of sporting
fish, and you must take the chance of hooking
a half-pounder along with your chance of a fish
nearer two pounds. And do not neglect the
ditch which runs in at right angles halfway
up. I have seen a past-master take no less

10 — 2

76 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

than three capital trout from those few yards
in one day, turning each as hooked down into
the Highland Burn, and killing him there.

OF THE NEGOTIATION OF TAILERS.

Authority hath it that " the best policy is, per-
haps, to leave tailing fish alone "; but the busy
man, who only gets an occasional day's fishing, to
whom that advice is too trying and disappointing
(meaning me), was recommended to try an
Orange Bumble or a Furnace. With an excep-
tion I shall presently refer to, it is some years since
I have had any experience of tailing trout, for an
alteration in a weir has made such a difference in
the pace and level of a length on the chalk stream I
most do fish, that whereas in the old days the tailer
used to be a common sight there, nowadays it is
the greatest rarity. But in those old days the
tailer was my stand-by. If — as was frequently
the case — I made naught of the morning rise, I
would betake me to this length and sit down
gaily to the siege of each tailer in succession, with
the confidence that, unless I made some mistake
and scared the fish — and tailers are not too easily
scared — sooner or later he was my fish. It was
often later, for I had to go on casting, casting,
casting, in the hope that the moment might come
when my fly would be passing over the trout at
the moment when his head was raised, and he
was taking breath before another big go at the

SUNDRY CONSIDERATIONS ^^

shrimps and other food in the weed-beds. The
frequent casting gave much opportunity for mis-
takes, and not infrequently I scared my fish, after
wasting half an hour or more over him ; but, on
the other hand, I seldom failed to secure at least
one fish, and oftener a leash. The method was
simplicity itself. I sat down below my fish, and
dropped a Pink Wickham a yard or so above
where his tail dimpled the surface, and floated it
down over him quite dry. This was repeated so
long as the fish was there, but if he lifted his
head in time to see the fly come over him, there
seemed to be some mysterious attraction in that
pattern which forbade him to refuse it. Whether
this is so in other waters I know not, but I often
regret the obliteration of the old race of tailers.
They were a great stand-by, and always put up
a big battle when hooked. The size of fly was
00 for smooth water, but in a ruffle the single
cipher size proved better medicine.

The single occasion above referred to was in
May, 1909, in a different part of the river. The
water was running thinly over a broad shallow,
very full up with weed-beds, and, instead of
standing nearly perpendicularly on their heads in
order to tail, large numbers of trout and grayling
were grubbing at an acute angle with the bottom
among the weed-beds, and with violent wriggles
of head and body dislodging small insects, which
they pursued with rushes plainly marked upon the

78 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

surface, ending, at the moment of capture of the
prey, with swirls. I did not put up a Pink
Wickham, because I had another experiment to
make. In the previous July I had caught three
brace before eleven o'clock on a nymph imitated
in olive seal's fur from one found in the mouth
of a trout on the previous day, and I wanted to
give it a trial here, on the chance that it might
be found that it was nymphs, and not shrimps,
that the tailing fish were shaking out. So, keep-
ing the artifi.cial nymph soaking at the end of
my hne in the run at my feet, I despatched it every
now and then across the course of the trout, when,
desisting from their grubbing, they pursued the
flying quarry. It was generally the case that,
by the time the fly lit, the fish was careering
off in some different direction ; but several fish
pursued my fly and swirled at it, and one takable
trout and one short of the regulation twelve inches
succeeded in taking it. It was a short and most
inconclusive experiment, but, if occasion serves,
it will be renewed.

OF THE FASCINATION OF BRIDGES.

Years ago, before ever I knew the Upper Itchen,
there was a wooden farm bridge which crossed
the main river to carry produce. Whether the
bridge fell into decay through disuse and neglect
consequent upon the fields on the east side being
separately let to another farmer, or whether the

SUNDRY CONSIDERATIONS 79

separate letting occurred because the bridge became
dangerous, and would have cost too much to repair,
anyhow, when I came first to know this particular
part of the river in the early eighties, there was
nothing left of the bridge except a stump or two,
green with slime, brown with rot, showing just
above water, or intercepting weed — just that and
a band of bottom a little higher than the river-
bed above and below, as if the made bottom
which had carried the bridge still persisted. Even
the stumps are long gone the way of all stumps,
and the made bed is only just traceable if you
know where to find it. But for all that, after all
these years, this is the place in the river where
trout are to be found feeding, if they are found
feeding anywhere ; and they feed in much the
same way, seeming secure, yet really shy, as the
trout feed under or just below all the bridges on
the river. All bridge trout seem to be shy. Some
bridges make shyer trout than others. I knew
one — a railway-bridge on that length — under which
in four-and-twenty years I never got a trout, or
even a rise, for all I tried persistently, wet and
dry, until 1908, and then only because on that
particular day a strong ruffle of wind blew up the
arch and made good big waves. Then I got a
brace to a floating Tup's Indispensable, and lost
another fish. Whether it is the holt into which
to run at hint of danger, or the insects which
haunt the woodwork, or the clear space of un-

So MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

weeded water in which to swim, or what not,
bridges seem to have a special fascination for
trout; and if the fly (preferably a small sedge)
can be delicately dropped over the fish as if it
fell from the woodwork, the chances of getting
him are much increased.

Trout seem specially watchful at bridges, and,
if the water be not too fast, will turn to take a fly
which is aimed to hit them on the tail.

CHAPTER VIII
MAINLY TACTICAL

OF THE DELIBERATE DRAG.

Of all trials of the chalk-stream angler, perhaps
drag is the worst. Yet even drag may be made
use of on occasion, to add to the weight of the
creel. Years back, on the Erlaubnitz in South
Germany, I sat by a mill-head on a blazing
and wellnigh hopeless September afternoon. The
water was low, much of the head having been
run oif by the sawmill, and such little current
as there was confined itself almost entirely to
tlie centre. Brown and dirty-looking weeds topped
the surface along my side of the head. Suddenly
I detected a tiny dimple in a little spot where,
among the weeds, an eighteen-inch square of clean
surface showed itself. I despatched my fly — a
Landrail and Hare's Ear Sedge on a No. 3 hook —
and by good luck or good management it dropped
neatly on the spot. I waited. Three minutes
passed. Nothing happened. Then I thought to
recover my fly and drop it again in the hole, but
with rather less delicacy, so as to attract attention

81 II

82 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

to its fall. But first I had to recover it. I
moved it gently towards the side of the hole, but
I could not prevent the effect of a drag on the
surface. Yet ere the fly had moved three inches
a good pound-and-a-half trout had it, and, after
a game of pully-hauly in the weeds, was duly
brought to net. This was a limestone stream,
and not a chalk stream.

But in August, 1908, I was on my way through
the meadows to the main Itchen, when in a much-
weed-encumbered carrier I became aware of a
good trout lying in, and near the head of, a little
pool of open water three or four yards long at
most, and perhaps a third as wide. My rod and
cast were ready, but no fly. So I knotted on a
good big sedge — I think a No. 3 Silver Sedge*
The water was glassy smooth, and the current
would not have carried my fly the length of the
open water in much under five minutes. I was
afraid to cast above the fish, or to right or left
of his head, for I knew it would send him scuttling
to weed. I wanted to drop the fly just behind
his eyes, but I misjudged, and it fell several inches
short, almost upon his tail. I waited a moment ;
the trout lay still, but evidently excited. Then
I remembered my German experience, and began
to draw the fly along the surface. Immediately
the trout turned and slashed it, and was soundly
hooked. Candour compels me to admit that the
gut was also smashed by a strike of unregulated

MAINLY TACTICAL 83

violence ; but this is entirely beside the point,
for it in no sense detracts from the value of my
illustration of the occasional serviceableness of the
calculated drag in still waters, even with the
dry fly.

My friend M. Bougie acutely distinguishes drag
of the kind here described as the drag of deplace-
ment, as compared with the drag of retention^
which occurs on moving water.

On the Pang at Bradfield resides a blacksmith
named Holloway, who is a first-rate angler, and
I have seen him practise the deliberate drag on
fast water with the May-fly in a manner which in
other hands would send every trout scuttling to
cover, but he did not put them down a bit. He
ties a May-fly — not a very pretty confection, but
admirably constructed for this purpose. The
hackle, which is white, instead of standing out
more or less at right angles to the hook-shank, is
so tied as to lie almost flat upon it, and as a result
the fly leaves practically no wake when it is drawn
over the fish, and the movement, which he prac-
tises assiduously, far from scaring the fish, appears
to be actually attractive. Yet the Pang fish are
quite wary, and liberties may not be taken with
them with impunity. In this case once more we
have the drag of deplacement, but it is hard to see
why it should not be just as fatal to the angler's
chances as the drag of rUention.

II

84 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM
IN THE GLASS EDGE.

A more unpromising May day than that I now
tell of it would be hard to conceive. The wind —
from the west, with a bite of north in it — blew for
the most part dead across stream with strong,
shuddering gusts, so violent at times as to force
the angler, taken unawares, two or three steps
nearer to the water's edge, and more than once
nearly to precipitate him into the water between
the sedgy tussocks which fringed one side of this
length of Upper Itchen. On the previous day
there had been a sparse skirmishing line of dark
olives on the water at 10.15, covering the main
advance at 11.30 ; but to-day 10.30, 11, 11.30,
noon, and the intervening quarters, chimed from
the belfry, without a fly showing on the water or
in the air. At noon the sun shone out for a few
moments, and made fitful reappearances at in-
tervals till 1.30. Strolling slowly and watchfully
up the bank, with an eye on the far side, the
angler came upon Keeper Humphrey in atten-
dance on another angler, and, on his advice, put
up a Red Quill on a No. 0 hook, for lack of one a
size larger, and, leaving the other a couple of
hundred yards below, sat down to wait for the rise.
At length a little upwinged dun was seen in sail
in the glass edge, hugging the far bank as close as
possible. For a few yards it staggered down,
battered by the gale, and then shd sideways

MAINLY TACTICAL 85

among the flags under pressure of a stronger gust
than usual, and was lost to sight. Pitiably sparse
the fly were, and in half an hour not more than
half a dozen came in sight. All vanished dis-
appointingly among the flags. But at last the
watcher was rewarded by seeing one disappear in
the centre of a tiny widening ring, which scarcely
rippled out beyond the narrow glass edge. In a
moment distance was got by a trial cast a yard or
two downstream, and then the Red Quill dropped
perkily a foot above the spot where the dun had
disappeared, and went swiftly down on the
full current — so swiftly that the angler did not
realize until a second too late that the same neb
which had lain in wait for the dun had sucked in
the Red Quill. The strike was just too late, and
a pricked and badly scared trout dashed violently
out into the stream.

In the next little bay another rising trout was
located, but the violence of the wind made it
necessary to cast too tight a line in order to drop
the fly in the glass edge, with the result that a
drag began to develop immediately, putting the
trout down. A few yards higher a clump of trees
made a sort of buffer of air, and the conditions
were a bit easier. Yet, though the sun came out
and showed the Red Quill gliding down the glass
edge, the rise of the next trout was such a delicately
neat movement that the angler was once again
almost taken unawares. Yet this time he fastened,

86 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

and his first fish of the day, after a dumbfounded
second's pause, forged upstream with a rush,
tearing fine from the protesting reel. He was not,
however, allowed to reach his holt among the
weeds, but was turned, and netted out thirty yards
or so downstream, after a strenuous resistance.
The hook was on the extreme edge of his upper lip,
but, fortunately, had taken a beautifully firm hold.
The spring-balance recorded one pound fifteen
ounces — rather a disappointment, for his hogback
and splendour of general condition suggested that
he might, though a short sixteen inches, have
topped two pounds.

A moment sufficed to knot on a fresh fly, and
the very first cast into the glass edge, to a glide
where a dimple betrayed a trout, produced another
rise; and again the offer was accepted, and an
excellent fight put up. When eventually netted
out, the fish proved to be one pound nine ounces,
and even handsomer and finer in condition
than number one. He was hooked exactly in
the same way. There was one more rise
spotted, the fish risen, touched, and seen in the
clearness of the glass edge to flash some yards
upstream under the far bank. Then the sun
went in for a spell, and aU was over for the
day. The other angler had a brace — two pounds
ten ounces and one pound odd — caught in the
same way by floating the Red Quill in the glass
edge.

MAINLY TACTICAL 87

This was one of those rare days when the dry fly
can be fished into the bays under the opposite
bank.

OF THE CROSS-COUNTRY CAST.

If questioned on their favourite mode of ap-
proaching a trout, it is probable that nineteen out
of every twenty chalk -stream anglers, if not a
larger proportion, would plump for the right bank
with the rod held over the water. It is doubtless
the easiest method. It has various advantages
not difficult to enumerate, but it may be gravely
doubted whether it is the most effective from the
point of view of catching trout. Later under the
caption (" The Bank of Vantage ") it is shown
— with what success the reader must judge — that
in most states of the wind the left bank has, con-
trary to general opinion (other things, of course,
being equal), decided advantages over the right.

Apart from states of the wind, it must be ap-
parent that, where the horizontal cast is used, and
often where the cast is not strictly horizontal, the
left bank has the advantage over the right that
the rod and line are less displayed, and far less
likely to alarm a wary fish under the angler's own
bank than a rod held more or less over the stream ;
and, naturally, it is only to a fish under the
angler's own bank that the cross-country cast is
made.

Secondly, there is the advantage that little of the
line — possibly not all of the gut, even — strikes the

88 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

water. It is enough if the drag and the recovery
occur far enough below the fish not to disturb
him ; but if the fly be the right pattern the drag is
a matter of no consequence, as the cross-country
cast comes so lightly, so naturally, and with such
concealment of its perils from the trout, that as
frequently as not he takes the fly at the first offer.

Of course, the vegetation on the bank may be
such as to render it almost impossible to deliver
this cast without being hung up, but the angler
should not be too ready to assume that this is so.
It is wonderful how, with care, a light hand, and a
little patience, the line may be recovered, and what
risks may be taken with comparative impunity.
It is often astonishing to see how anglers who pay
largely for their fishing rights, own costly rods,
reels, and lines, and make long train journeys for
their fishing, will decline to tackle trout in difficult
positions, because it involves the possible loss of
a cast or a fly — perhaps is. 2jd. all told — with
the odds long in favour of the loss being no more
than a fly, and perhaps a point. I am ever for the
adventure. The certain smash does not always
come off.

But after the meadows are cut, and when the
sedges are low, it is often excellent sport to beat
slowly up on either bank, left or right, keeping in
either case well inland — especially so on the right
bank — and flicking a grass moth or a small sedge
dry into every little eddy and bay, and on to

MAINLY TACTICAL 89

every likely spot under the bank, with never more
than three feet — or four feet at the outside — of gut
on the water (often not more than eighteen inches or
a foot). Of course, a rod which will cast a short
line accurately is indispensable. The fly lights like
thistledown. On such days, if you work ortho-
doxly up your right bank, casting a longish line
upstream, and covering the water with it, you
shall not hook one fish for three which you shall
take with the cross-country cast. Then, to re-
cover it, you must either draw it slowly over the
edge where the danger lies, or you must flick the
line up so as to belly vertically away from you,
and pick the gut and fly cleanly off the water or
the herbage. And if occasionally one is hung up,
what does it matter ? If it be of service, the
angler is not denied such relief as the golfer freely
avails himself of when the deadly bunker has him
for its own.

WHAT TUSSOCKS ARE FOR.

This is not a riddle. It is a speculation which
many anglers have probably indulged in. Some
have considered them a providential arrangement
for the protection of the business of the dealer
in flies and tackle, and verily they have their
reasons. At one time I was of that fold, but of
late years I have had glimpses of the other side
of the shield, and I am beginning to realize that
while tussocks may be put along river-sides as a

12

90 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

trial of the patience of some, yet for others they
are a means of providing an occasional trout, and
generally a good one, on days when disappoint-
ment is king. They are placed, in other words,
for the trout to stand on the upstream side and
the angler on the downstream side, the latter
substantially concealed from the former. It is
equally true that the former is also concealed
from the latter ; but this is of little consequence
if, as is commonly the case, the screen is not dense
enough to hide the ring from the angler when the
trout takes his fly.

But it may be said, " What is the use of the con-
cealment if the inevitable result of casting over the
tussock is to get hung up in it ?" Well, it is not
the inevitable result. There are two ways of
tackling a tussock. One implies the use of a short
rod, or at least a rod capable of an accurate short
cast. It will not do to dib. At the first glimpse
of the rod-top over the tussock off goes your trout.
No ; the fly must be cast, and cast so near the
tussock that it drifts down to the fish just above
the tussock before it is necessary to pick it up for
the next cast with a forward flick. The other
method is to cast over the river side of the droop-
ing sedges of the tussock from such a distance that
only the gut and a foot or two of the casting line
go over the tussock, and to let the belly of the line
dip in the water between you and the tussock.
Then, if the fly be not taken, the angler shall see

MAINLY TACTICAL 9i

his line coming back smoothly and at the pace of
the stream over the tussock, and finally the fly
shall be Ufted off the surface with no disturbance,
and be drawn by the current softly over the
tussock, and drop on the surface on his own side,
free for the next attempt.

Obviously, this latter cast is not well suited to
the left bank unless the angler be left-handed, and,
then, it is not suited to the right bank, unless he
be ambidextrous. Ergo, the rod which casts a
short fine with delicacy and accuracy is a desider-
atum for this business, as for many others. A
heavy rod will seldom be found to do it. When
you have hooked your fish, he may be depended
on to carry your line at once free of the tussock.
I have never had an instance to the contrary, and
I have rather an affection for the tussock cast.

OF THE ALLEGED MARCH BROWN.

Everyone who reads much angling literature
must have come across ingenuous arguments on
the wonderful usefulness of the March Brown
even on waters, such as the chalk streams, where
the natural is not found. It is so. I have found
it so myself. One 6th of April some years back I
reached the Wey, to find that the Grannom was
weU on a good week in advance of time, and that
I had one imitation, and one only, in my box.
To improve upon the humour of the situation, I
allowed — nay, I forced — the first trout to whom

12 — 2

92 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

I presented it to keep it. But was I down-
hearted ? No ! I had some small floating March
Browns, which, with the whisks pinched off,
made quite satisfactory Grannoms and saved
the situation. On other occasions I have used
Grannom and March Brown indifferently to
represent the grass-moths with which the meadows
and banks were teeming, and they each did the
job excellently and were most attractive. I have
also used the March Brown as a Brown Silver
Horns, and to simulate other sedges, and there
is no doubt that it is an excellent fly, and, as
generally tied, quite a poor imitation of the
natural March Brown, and quite a passable
imitation of almost anything else.

GENERAL FLIES AND FANCY FLIES.

The alleged March Brown may be called a
** general fly " — i.e., it is a more or less satisfac-
tory imitation, not merely of one, but of many
flies. In the same way the Red Quill is a general
fly, covering not only a series of red spinners,
but also probably the whirling blue dun. Tup's
Indispensable used as a floater is an excellent
rendering of many red spinners. The sunk
variety is an efficient rendering of many nymphs.
No. I Whitchurch is, I see, included by Mr. F. M.
Halford among fancy flies ; but I should venture
to class it as ** general," being an effective pre-
sentment of the yellow dun series of flies. Green-

MAINLY TACTICAL 93

well's Glory, again, is a general fly, and with
its starling-winged variants it represents a series
of olives, from the blue-winged olive to the iron
blue (male).

It is hard to say what precisely are fancy flies,
unless one defines them as flies which are not
known to represent definitely any insect or class
of insects. Whether Wickham's Fancy to the
eye of a trout looks the gorgeous golden thing
which it does to mankind it is hard to say. I
have floated one on water over a mirror, and the
reflected image did not look golden at all, but a
pale, dim green, much like the colour seen through
gold beaten so thin that it is almost trans-
parent. The Pink Wickham may seem to the
trout to be a sedge with a greenish body. The Red
Tag may have its living prototype. The Soldier
Palmer is supposed to represent the soldier beetle.
But in most of these cases it is impossible to say
what the artificial represents, or may represent, in
life, and its attraction is apt to be that of some-
thing bright and garish which appeals to curiosity
or tyranny in the trout, rather than to appetite.
Indeed, why a trout should take any artificial
fly is a puzzle to me. The very best are not really
very like the real thing. One thing is clear :
It is not form which appeals to the trout, but
colour and size.

I know a skilful angler who, when he ties on a
new split-winged floater, rumples and breaks up

94 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

the fibre of its wings with his fingers before using
it. This he does for the excellent reason that it
pays. His theory is that it lets the light through ;
but form is entirely sacrificed.

It is a curious fact that, though the Test and
Itchenare " by or dinar' " clear, yet double-dressed
floaters can be successfully used on them, which
would do little or nothing on other streams, of
which the Wandle occurs to me as an example.
If I had a day on the Wandle, I should take care
to provide myself with single-winged patterns.
Can it be that the clearness of the Test and
Itchen is such that the fly looks distinct enough
by reflected light, while transmitted light is
necessary to render the fly noticeable on such
streams as the Wandle ? In any case, when
visiting a strange river, the angler should see if the
fish will or will not stand double-dressed floaters,
if he has a fancy for that build of fly.

CHAPTER IX

CONSIDERATIONS MORAL, TACTICAL, PSYCHO-
LOGICAL, AND INCIDENTAL

OF FAITH.

Among the many uncertainties which attend the
sport of fly-fishing, there is one thing that may be
laid down as certain, and that is that no consistent
measure of success attends a lure, whether wet,
dry, or semi-submerged, in which the angler has
not faith ; and it may be shrewdly suspected that
much of the ill-success which has attended the
use of the wet fly upon chalk streams in the past
is due to lack of confidence on the part of the
angler. It has been laid down so positively by
the high-priests of the dry fly that the wet fly has
no chance compared with it — at any rate, on
smooth water — and it has been so freely stated
that crack wet-fly anglers come down to the
chalk streams confident in their powers to make
an exhibition of chalk-stream fish, only to retire
defeated and converted, that it is httle wonder
that the chalk-stream angler who tries the wet fly
does it half-heartedly ; and it is probable that the

95

96 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

North-Country man coming to practise his art
upon South-Country streams, and accustomed to
catch his trout in considerable numbers, soon be-
comes disheartened by failure to do the like on
rivers where two or three brace is a good bag.
Probably he casts a much shorter line than is
advisable on chalk streams, and so scares off or
puts dov/n his fish, and discouragement and the
sceptical attitude of his South-Country hosts and
keepers knock him off his game before he has had
time to adjust himself to the (to him) novel con-
ditions.

Fishing a chalk stream with a wet fiy is not quite
like fishing a mountain stream or North-Country
river, and it is not a game to be learnt in an hour
or a day. But if the angler will fix his mind
firmly on the fact that the wet fly was for centuries
the only method in use on chalk streams, and
that it brought excellent baskets to good anglers
in the past, he may set to work with confidence
that in the right conditions the wet fly will kill,
and kill well, at this day, and he may set himself
with equal confidence to find out for himself how
it is done. And let him not be disturbed by the
fact that there are days or hours when it has not
a chance against the dry fly ; for there are days
and hours when the dry fly has not a chance
against it, and there are other occasions when the
trout will take either with approximately equal
freedom.

FAITH 97

Simultaneously with my own experiments re-
corded in this volume, Mr. F. M. Halford was
engaged in establishing and proving his latest
series of patterns, in which he endeavours to
approximate more closely than ever before to the
coloration and attitude of the natural insects,
especially in his series of spinners. In an article
over the signature " Detached Badger," which
appeared in the Field of October 22, 1904, Mr.
Halford was at some pains to prove that these
spinners must be taken floating ; but the feature
of these patterns is that they do not, like the old
patterns, sit cocked upon the surface, lifted half-
hackle-high above it, but, being sparsely dressed,
lie low on the water, practically flush with the
surface, and thus achieve a closer approximation
to the spent natural insect than did the old
patterns. This, as much as the more exact color-
ation, may account for the success of these
patterns. And, after all, a fly that is flush with
the water is perilously close to the edge of wet.
Tup's Indispensable fished as a spinner in the
evening rise will often kill better semi - sub-
merged and flush with the surface than thoroughly
dried and oiled. It usually serves me well, and
I have accordingly scarcely tried Mr. F. M. Hal-
ford's new patterns, but when I have done so it
has been wet that they have been taken, and
not dry.

I mentioned a few pages back that another

13

98 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

Itchen angler once fished the whole of a season — it
may have been two — with the Red Quill in various
shades and sizes, and with differences introduced
by the presence or omission of tinsel tags, and
he achieved a success with that one pattern or
type quite as great as he enjoyed when he allowed
himself the full range of the hundred best and
some others.

Clearly, he and " Detached Badger " have had
faith — the faith which, if it does not move moun-
tains, will at least move trout. And the angler
who takes his courage in both hands and experi-
ments boldly with the wet fly fished upstream
to his trout, or into the place where his trout
should be, will find his faith, as mine has been,
not without its reward.

OF THE BANK OF VANTAGE.

In looking back on a day's fly-fishing, one can
realize how much has depended upon the correct
selection of the bank to fish from, and an examina-
tion of some of the more important of the general
considerations governing choice may not be amiss.
Special conditions, such as height of banks, the
trees and bushes thereon, and the accessibility of
the water therefrom, may force upon us deviations
from what our judgment would otherwise dictate,
and it is impossible to dogmatize about these.
There are also cases where the winding character
of the stream presents such a constant variety of

THE BANK OF VANTAGE 99

conditions that it is impossible to say that at the
moment of selection one bank is more worthy of
choice than the other. But, subject to such special
conditions, there are a few general principles which
it is well to bear in mind in considering from which
side we shall direct our attack.

The first of these is to avoid such a position as
will throw the shadow of angler or rod over the
fish. This is an obvious consideration, and one
that is easy of application. But it does not neces-
sarily follow that, because the sun will throw one's
shadow — even a long or formidable shadow — on to
the stream from, say, the right bank, one must
necessarily adopt the other. It may be that the
shadow will be straight across or even behind the
angler, or, at any rate, in such a position as, for
instance, not to interfere with his casting up-
stream, or upstream and across, and the river
bottom may not be so bare that the fall of his
shadow will send the trout scurrying upstream to
disturb and put down the feeding fish above. In
narrow streams, however, the effect of shadow in
bolting fish upstream is necessarily far more pro-
nounced than in streams of moderate width — say
twelve to twenty yards. In like manner, the narrow
stream should not, if possible, even with a favour-
ing upstream breeze, be fished from the right bank,
which necessitates holding the rod and waving
line and fly over the water, or one may see one's
hopes laid low for half an hour or more, and a good

13—2

100 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

stretch spoiled by the bolting of fish which, ap-
proached from the other bank by a more or less
" cross-country cast," with the rod held low to
the right, might have been brought to basket or
turned downstream.

Probably, however, the most generally govern-
ing consideration is the direction of the wind in re-
lation to the general trend of the stream. Perhaps
the majority of fly -fishermen, if asked to choose
a bank with an upstream or downstream wind,
would choose the right without hesitation. But
there may be a good deal to be said for the other
side, apart even from the sun and the narrowness
of the stream. For instance, with an upstream
wind and a fairly wide river, especially if it be
swift, the angler on the right bank is practically
confined to his own bank and midstream fishing.
If he casts for the opposite bank, he finds it ex-
tremely difficult to be accurate, and a drag which
inevitably puts the fish down is almost certain to
be set up. On the left bank, however, not only
can he approach the left bankers more closely than
he dare approach the right bankers when fishing
on the right bank, not only can he tackle the mid-
stream fish equally well, but he can cut under and
against the wind and get across to the opposite
bank far more accurately from the left bank
than from the right, where the wind follows his
hand.

Take next the case of a downstream wind. Here

THE BANK OF VANTAGE loi

the angler will want to consider what he has to do.
Does he wish to fish his own bank or the opposite
bank, or both ? Casting from the right bank, he
can cut under the wind and get his fly over to the
opposite bank far better than he could from the
left ; but is it worth doing ? If he can float his
fly for a reasonable distance without drag, it may
well be ; but if the current be so strong as to set
up an almost immediate drag, he may be practi-
cally confined to his own bank. So he would be
on the left side ; but whereas casting from the right
bank he would be apt to find the point of his gut
cast forced outwards and downwards by the wind,
and be constantly landing his line on the sedges or
bank, when casting from the other side his line
would fall upon the water, and the gut-point and
fly be driven inwards so as to search the water
quite close under the bank, just like a natural fly.
■\Ioreover, it would not be driven so far inward as
it would be driven outward when cast from the
opposite side, for in dropping over the bank-edge
the fly and gut-point would enter, before the force
of the cast is spent, into that little cushion of
calm to be found just under the bank, and would
generally straighten out in a manner to command
admiration both from men and trout.

Take next the case of an upstream wind slightly
across from the right bank to the left. Here it is
even more difficult for an angler on the right bank
to fish his own bank than for an angler on the left

102 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

bank, while he has more command in cutting
across to the far side from the left bank than
from the right. If, on the other hand, the wind
be upstream and off the left bank, by standing
back a bit and using a short cross-country cast
the angler may get his fly very neatly over most
of the fish under his own bank, and can cut
across more easily than he could from the right
bank.

Take, again, the case of a wind downstream and
across from the right bank to the left. Here again
the angler on the left bank is in the superior
position for negotiating his own bank, casting
almost straight into the wind, and letting fly and
point be deflected under his own bank. On the
right bank the angler would be apt to have his fly
flung out towards midstream, and the short cross-
country cast would be apt to miscarry. On the
other hand, if the wind be downstream and across
from the left bank, the advantage lies slightly with
the right bank, but it is nothing like so marked
(assuming, as we have been doing from the first,
that the angler is right-handed) as in the converse
case.

On the whole, therefore, it will be seen that,
contrary to the generally received opinion, unless
the wind be fairly direct upstream or (for fishing
the opposite bank) down, the left bank is almost
invariably the bank of vantage.

COURAGE 103

OF COURAGE AND THE JEOPARDIZING OF
TUPPENCE ha'penny.

That, my friends, is almost the extreme price of
a trout-fly. Some cost less. Yet how often shall
you see an angler whose equipment for the taking
of trout has run into pounds, and whose railway
fare and reckoning at his inn are substantial
items of expenditure upon the same object, throw
away most sporting occasions for the attainment
of his end because, forsooth, he is sure to be hung
up or weeded or smashed or something equally
delightful — and bang would go tuppence ha'penny !
I have no patience with this sort of thing. The
more hopeless the prospect of getting out a trout
from an impossible place, the more determined
I am to try for him. De Vaiidace, encore de Vaiidace
— tonjoiirs de Vaudace! In May, 1909, just before
the May-fly began, I was by the river-side, when I
heard a loud smacking sound, and, peering through
a willow-bush, I saw a fine trout cruising on an
eddy and sucking down flies with hearty enjoyment.
If I cast over him from behind the bush, I should
have to play him on a six-ounce rod with xxx
gut between a thorn-bush which I could touch with
my right hand and a willow I could touch with
my left. There were snags above and snags
below. Did I hesitate ? Only long enough to
tie on a new Crosbie Alder, then long enough for
him to reach the top of his beat, and then I

104 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

dropped the fly behind him just before he turned.
He was the satisfactory side of four pounds, and I
got his successor next day out of the same place
— three pounds six ounces. A beautiful brace !
Luck! Of course it was luck, but I shouldn't
have had it if I hadn't taken risks.

There was a Kennet trout under a willow in
May-fly time. A weed-piled snag in the stream just
below the droop of the willow made it impossible
to get a fly over him by casting above the willow
and floating down. There was just one possible
way — to make a slanting downward cut which
might bring the fly down between branches
in a sort of dip in the tree, and drop it on the
fish's nose. I left two flies in the tree, but I
did the trick and got the fish. He was only two
pounds six ounces, but I thought he was bigger.
Still

Then there was a fish which lay just above a
hatch-hole through which water ran into the
meadows. The inevitable thing for him to do
when hooked was to bolt down the hatch-hole.
But somehow he didn't, and I got him. There
was a pound-and-a-half trout taking tiny pale
duns on the edge of a small pile of weeds collected
against a broken bough of a tree, into which he
was sure to bolt when hooked. But somehow
he didn't, and he was steered to the landing-net
with a No. coo dun on gossamer gut attached to
his nose. Then there was that trout which I got

IMPOSSIBLE PLACES 105

over a barbed wire crossing the stream eight or
ten yards away.

There are countless such instances — I tell of
some more under the head of " Impossible Places "
— but there is one thing that may safely be deposed
to, and that is, that there is no place so desperate
that, with luck and management, you may not get
a well-hooked trout out of it.

OF IMPOSSIBLE PLACES.

The habit of a lightly hooked trout, of floundering
on the surface, is too well known to need enlarging
on. Sometimes his antics will be varied by leaps
into the air. But is the tendency of a hard-held
fish to go to weed or snag equally well realized ?
Yet from a consideration of these two established
tendencies may not a highly unorthodox method
of extricating a good fish from the impossible
position be evolved ? What is the theory ?
This : Let him think he is lightly hooked.

It was on the banks of the Itchen that the
first glimmerings of the idea suggested themselves.
A novice with the dry fly was walking disconso-
late up the stream, bemoaning himself that he
could not find a rising fish. Coming up with a
brother angler just about to settle down to a
rising trout in some quick water, he was invited
to cast over it. The fly covered the right spot,
and brought up his troutship, who fastened, and,
turning at once, bolted at express speed down-

14

io6 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

stream. The novice, unaccustomed to anything
more formidable than Devonshire brook trout,
disregarded his companion's advice, " Run, man,
run downstream for all you're worth !" and backed,
open-mouthed, slowly upstream, letting out line
as freely as the reel (a checkless one) would let it
go. So long as the line put no check upon him
the trout ploughed downstream close to the
surface, but the moment the reel was empty and
he felt the check he was deep in a weed-bed. He
stayed there till the angler had reeled up and put
on another fly. The checked fish goes to weed.
That was the first lesson.

The second was in this wise : On a September
morning a good many years back, a brace of
trout were rising, a yard or so apart, above
a tree which overhung the same water on the
side where the angler stood knee- deep in a
swampy reed - bed. It was possible to reach
them if, holding by his left hand to a bough,
and resting one foot on a root while dangling the
other in the water, he hung over the river at an
angle of forty-five degrees, and threw his fine under-
hand up the stream. But how if he hooked his
fish ? There was a bank of weeds, dense and
long, a yard or two above. Well, he must chance
it. The likelihood of losing the fish seemed over-
whelming, the chance of kiUing him slight ; for
the position was so awkward that, in order to get
back to terra firma, there was nothing for it but

IMPOSSIBLE PLACES 107

to tuck the rod under the arm and trust to chance
while recovering equiUbrium and a footing. Yet
the angler got both these fish. Situated as he
was he could put no pressure on them ; he could
not even keep the line taut. But each of the
fish when hooked came floundering and splattering
unresistingly downstream, trying to throw out
the stinging insect that adhered to his jaw. By
the time the angler was prepared to deal with him
the fish was in open water and was easily played.
Result, a brace of one and a quarter pounders and
the second lesson. The unchecked fish flounders
on the surface.

What these two lessons have been worth to the
angler it would be tedious to relate, but one or two
instances may illustrate. There was that fish — one
and three-quarter pounds he proved — rising on the
far side of a dense bank of weeds in a channel
two feet wide. He had to be approached with
reverence on one's face, and from twenty feet out in
the meadow. He took the Pink Wickham at the
first time of asking, and the angler, having fastened,
dropped his rod-point instantly. The fish with a
startled plunge rushed up the channel and out
into the open water, and began to flounder.
Before he knew where he was the angler turned
him, brought him down the right side of the
dangerous weed-bank, and duly netted him out.

Then, again, there was that black fish between
two pollard willows on the Darenth. He was rising

14—2

io8 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

eighteen inches out from the bank. The willows
were two yards apart, and their roots formed a
mass of snags below him, while just downstream of
them was a plank bridge a foot above the river.
Here again it was a case of kneeling far out in
the meadow and dropping the Yellow Dun exactly
over the nose of the fish. He came with the most
confiding simplicity. Had he been checked he
would have been in the snags before one could say
" Knife," but the angler, mindful of his lesson, held
him not. So it befell that he rushed out into mid-
stream and leapt four several times, much as does
a pricked fish that is not hooked at all. But ere
he could do more the angler was on terms with him,
and held him out from the bank, up from the
bottom, and away from the plank bridge, till the
landing-net received his one pound six ounces.

Finally, let the tale be told of a trout of the
Kennet that had his holt in a corner of a little
bay, whence a willow-bush had fallen into the
river, leaving on the bank side a tangle of broken
roots, in the river to the right, some three yards
off, the half-submerged willow, while above and
below were heavy patches of long swaying weed.
It was an ideal place for a trout to feed in — and
to break away. The water came into the bay in
a little defined channel between weeds, and in this
a foot below the entry a sizable neb was show-
ing at intervals. A small Green Champion May
dropped exactly in the channel, and trotted down

THE LANDING-NET 109

the prescribed distance and disappeared. Again
the tactics of the loosened hne, again the hooked
fish rushed out from his almost impregnable holt
into the open, and was presently netted out by
the triumphant angler — a handsome and, he
thinks, a not ill-deserved three pounds ten ounces.
A week later the same tactics produced another fish
of two pounds eleven ounces from the same hole.

OF THE USE OF THE LANDING-NET.

There is a common superstition among anglers
that the primary use of a landing-net is to land
fish. Let us rather say that the use of a landing-
net, rightly understood, is to assist in the capture
of fish. Not to catch fish, for the catching of fish
in the landing-net is mere poacher's work, but to
aid in the catching. Some anglers tell you you
must never show your net to a fish until ready
for netting. But why not, if it will help you to
kill him ? There are many more or less desperate
cases where the net may be of the profoundest
service long before it is called to operate at the
final ceremony of dipping out. I will give one or
two examples in an ascending scale of complexity.

Firstly, a new use for the handle. Under the
left bank of a South-Country chalk stream a trout
is taking every dun that goes down alongside the
cluster of cut weed under which he shelters.
The angler's Gold-ribbed Hare's Ear fighting deli-
cately a foot above, with the gut resting on the

110 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

weed, is accepted and carried straight down into
the weed-bed below. The angler reels up tight
over the fish, but fails to move him. Ah, there
is the long-handled landing-net ! A few judiciously-
placed prods with the butt bring him plunging
stupidly out, and he is bustled down into open
water and promptly dipped out with the other
end.

Secondly, the use of the mesh. Scene : A hooked
fish racing downstream towards a dense weed-bed
on the angler's side. The angler offers the net,
and the fish sheers off into midstream, and is
towed past the dangerous obstruction. Very
simple examples these.

The third and next is more complex. Scene : A
hatch-hole which lets water from the same stream
into a carrier in the water-meadows. Camp-
sheathing on both sides of the hatch, supported
by three successive crossbars from four feet to
eight feet long as the sides diverge. Under the
middle bar lies a good trout, very evidently feeding.
Problem, how to get him. It is impossible to cast
underneath the crossbars. One can only cast over
them, and trust to luck and judgment to get the
fish out if one hooks him. If he runs downstream
the line is doubled over the crossbar and a break
is assured. But how is he to be prevented ? The
angler knows that under the apron of the hatch
there is a big hole, and he sets to work with
confidence. The fly is dropped from below, just

THE LANDING-NET in

over the third or shortest bar. The drag of the
oiled silk line brings it back till it passes over the
third bar, and drops softly on the water with a
foot or two to float before it can drag. Presently
it is taken, and the hooked fish has turned to bolt
down the carrier. But there the angler is ready.
Landing-net in hand, he gesticulates wildly at the
advancing fish, which bolts upstream again and
buries itself in the hole under the apron. Softly
the rod is passed under the second and lowest
crossbars, then the point is brought down to the
water's edge, and with a steady strain and a
jarring tap on the butt of the rod the trout is
brought down out of his fastness and killed in
due course.

Lastly, another example, of a similar method.
Imagine a strong stream some three yards wide and
one hundred yards or so long, running down from a
similar hatch to a big cross-dyke reaching out on
both sides. The angler is on the right bank, and
the current turns to the left on reaching the dyke.
The water for the latter half of the carrier is too
deep for wading. In the broad gravel shallow
at the tail of the patch a big two-pounder is lying.
The angler has already been run by a much
smaller fish down to the verge of the carrier, where
the stream turns off, and only netted his trout just
in time. For various reasons the other bank is
unsuitable to fish from. To begin with, the big
trout is not accessible from that side. Even from

112 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

the left bank it is difficult to cast over him, but
presently our artist with the landing-net gives
the appropriate response to the dimpling rise
with which he takes the Ginger Quill, and a good
sound working connection is established. For a
moment the angler does not put a pull on him,
and he moves out into the strong water, shaking
his head to get rid of that objectionable insect
that has fastened in his palate. The angler
rapidly winds in line, and begins to hold him
firmly. His aim is to keep him tiring himself
in the strong water — not to drive him up under
the apron (it is unnecessary to run that risk now),
but to keep him from running down. The stream
is narrow enough to enable the angler, by dipping
his rod-point to right or left, to turn the fish from
every upward rush to such a holt, but in a few
moments comes the downward rush. Now for the
landing-net. In an instant the fish has turned
and is back facing the strong water, and engaged
in fighting to get up into the shelter of the hatch.
But again and again he is turned and brought
down to the edge of the gravel shelf where the
stream is strongest, when a hint from the landing-
net sends him up again straining with all his force
against both stream and line. Presently, tiring
of the game, and failing in his efforts to rub out
the hook against the camp-sheathing, he turns
and bolts downstream with such suddenness as to
evade the threatening net, and is gone forty yards

THE LANDING-NET 113

before the angler is level with him. Then again
a threat of the net turns him, and he makes a
dash for a weed-bed some ten yards or so above.
From this he has to be turned down, and his
downward rush stopped with the net as before.
From this point the fight resolves itself into a series
of downstream rushes, alternating with much
briefer trips upstream, terminated by the necessity
in each case for pulling the trout down out of the
weed-bed he is bolting for. At last, at the very
bottom of the straight, on the edge of the dyke,
the fish, not yet half beaten, has to be dragged
willy-nilly into the landing-net, or else he must
escape down the dyke which streams away on the
far side.

Finally, and in conclusion, one more example.
The locus in quo is a piece of fast water some eight
or ten yards long, a sort of tumbling-bay, from
which the water escapes at racing pace through a
culvert twelve or fourteen feet long, which passes
under a farm road, thence along some two hundred
yards of narrow weedy carrier to an irrigation hatch.
In the tumbling-bay are three or four fine fish, one
of them something over two pounds. All are feeding
on something under water, probably nymphs. A
dry fly woulcl drag at once. A double-hooked
Greenwell's Glory, as used on North-Country rivers,
might do the trick. But the hooked fish will to a
certainty bolt down the culvert, and then it will be
a case of smash at once, or weeding with a long

15

114 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

line, and the impossible task of bringing the fish up
the racing stream into the tumbling-bay again, or
of passing the ten-foot rod through a twelve-foot
culvert. Happy thought ! there on the bank is a
plank that has been floated down the stream above,
there is some string, and there is the watcher to lend
a hand. He receives the landing-net, and goes
below some fifteen yards or so. Presently the fly
drops well soaked on the water, and swings over
the best of the trout, which the next minute has
raced down and through the culvert, tearing out
line until — yes, until the menacing net in the
hands of the watcher sends him securely to weed.
Now for the plank. A minute serves to tie on
the rod and to send the plank floating down
through the culvert. The watcher is ready on the
other side with the landing-net, and draws the
plank to the side. The rod is released, and soon
the angler stands over the fish with a short line.
Now for the net again. A few well-directed prods
with the butt brings up the fish, who bolts for the
culvert. But the net is before him on the far side,
and he gets back into the tumbling-bay. Guiding
the line with the butt, a pull is got on him which
soon brings him down again below the culvert.
The only remaining dangers are the weeds and
the hatch-hole at the far end. From this last the
net is again ready to keep him, and the great battle
ends as every such battle should.

THE WEEDING TROUT Ii5

OF THE WEEDING TROUT.

It has been shown how it was frequently
possible to extract a big trout from an apparently
impossible fastness by a tactical trick. Every
angler knows that a trout who is, or conceives
himself to be, hghtly hooked will thrash about
upon the surface in his effort to dislodge the fly,
very often with success, though not always ; for
occasionally the hook will have a small but suffi-
cient hold in some inaccessible place, such as the
corner of the jaw, and all is well with the angler. It
is by playing upon this idiosyncrasy and slacken-
ing on a fish immediately after it is hooked that the
trout may frequently be induced to run from an
impenetrable holt into the open in order to kick
himself free from the surface. The same idiosyn-
crasy may be worked upon with a weeding fish,
with gratifying results. If the angler hooks a fish
which turns and bolts downstream below him, he
will note that the fish will not go to weed until
he is held. The moment he is held he will whip
into the first available weed-bed. That is the
first step in our argument. The next is this : The
harder he is held the more frightened he becomes,
and the deeper and the more desperately he \\ill
burrow in the weeds.

But one day it occurred to me to try upon the
trout that has got to weed the tactics of inducing
him to beUeve himself hghtly hooked. To let him

15—2

ii6 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

go altogether for a time till he recovered his nerve
and came out was an old and often unsuccessful
device. To hand-line him was to put a much
harder pull upon him than could be put on with
a rod, and though it sometimes worked, it was by
no means always successful. For the new method,
therefore, it was necessary to maintain a light
pull upon the fish, but so light that the rod- top
gave to every movement, leaving the fish almost
as free as if he were loose, but with just the
difference that there was enough strain to keep
him beating, and enough to provide a fulcrum for
him to beat from. The experiment was brilliantly
successful. On the first occasion on which it
was tried, three trout (all over two pounds) were
hooked in a weedy portion of the Itchen upon the
lightest tackle and a delicate rod. Each went to
weed. The angler held his hand high (for the
rod was but nine feet), and kept the very lightest
strain, with the result that the fish began to beat
among the weeds as he would on the surface, and
in a few moments had lashed the weeds aside and
kicked himself free of them, and was on top.
Once there he was resolutely hauled downstream
and bustled into the net. This method has be^n
worth many a good fish since that day ; indeed,
given a fairly soundly hooked fish, there have
been no failures. Of course, nothing will save
a fish so lightly hooked that the first touch of weed
or obstruction releases him. In applying this

THE LIGHT ROD 117

method, the light rod, which has come to be so
common, has an advantage over the big, heavy,
and clumsy weapon so frequently in the hands of
dry-fly men in the recent past. This is indeed a
notable instance of the superiority of the suaviter
in modo over the fortiter in re.

OF THE LIGHT ROD ON CHALK STREAMS.

In the catalog (I quote the word in the American
spelUng) of the house of William Mills and Son
of New York there is a portrait of Mr. Humphrey
Priddis (whose signature " Dabchick " at the foot
of Itchen reports is familiar to all readers of the
Field) holding up a two and one-eighth pound
trout which he had just killed on a two and
one-eighth ounce Leonard rod, the property of
young Mr. Mills, a son of that house. I was
down on the Itchen the afternoon on which that
feat was done. I saw the rod, the fish, and the
captor, and the place was pointed out to me.
The water was full of dense masses of waving
weeds, and in accomplishing the capture of such
a fish — a large one for the water — on such a rod
there is no doubt that the angler executed a feat
of which he had every right to be proud. He
declared himself amazed at the power of the rod,
and that he could throw three-and-twenty yards
with it.

Young Mr. Mills was fishing with a nine-foot rod
weighing five ounces, a delightful tool capable of

ii8 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

casting a heavy tapered Halford line with wonder-
ful command. I had the privilege of trying it,
and I promptly acquired its duplicate, in addition
to the ten-footer of the same make which I
already possessed and had used the previous
season.

I am not going to reargue here the long contro-
versy of light rod versus the old-style ounce-to-
the-foot weapon. The light rod has won its place,
and has come to stay. Those who have tried it
fairly are convinced that it will answer all neces-
sary calls for casting, that it is fully equal to
butting and killing large trout, and that it adds
a daintiness to the art of fly-fishing which the old-
time anglers of the heavy rod were hardly con-
scious it lacked. But I do want to press three
points in its favour beyond those enumerated :
(i) It casts a dehghtful short line, and I confess
to fishing consistently with the shortest line I
dare use, often with most of that in the country ;
(2) it can be fished steadily all day, wet or dry,
without tiring the hand — what a change from
those terrible wrist-breaking, hand-paralyzing,
blister-producing flails of the eighties and nineties I
and (3) it enables one to play light with unequalled
sensitiveness. When I was a boy at Winchester,
old John Hammond had the length commonly
known nowadays as Chalkley's, and I well remem-
ber the rods which old John used to turn out for
fishing the Itchen. They were soft and floppy

CONSIDERATIONS INCIDENTAL 119

to an extent which would nowadays lead to their
immediate rejection; but I have seen the maker
with one of them steer a good fish, hooked under
the opposite bank, by sheer handling, over dense
weed, into the waiting landing-net. And remem-
bering this, and remembering how a fish which
goes to weed can, if lightly handled from the first,
be forced, by play on his idiosyncrasy, to beat
himself free and up to the surface, I am inclined
to think that the modern angler is far too much
inclined to use force in handhng a hooked fish,
and that a rod which achieves — as the light split
canes of the highest class do — a combination of
steely quickness and casting power with some-
thing of the sensitive delicacy of the wood rods of
old John Hammond is the equipment to have in a
tussle with a big fish on fine tackle.

To kill a brace of trout one of over four pounds
and the other three pounds six ounces on xxx gut
in deep weedy and snag-infested water between two
bushes which I could touch with either hand, and
which prevented movement up or down stream, is a
feat which I am sure my old-time heavy rods could
have done no better than did my six-ounce ten-
footer in 1909. Force was no good in such a
place, and force was never used until each trout
had been sufficiently bewildered and fatigued by
beating in vain against the nothing which re-
strained him to be kept more or less under the
rod's point till ready for the net.

120 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM
OF WET-FLY CASTING.

The use of rods which carry a heavy reel line
is so general on chalk streams that probably the
easy drying of the fly and cast is taken as a
matter of course, and it is little recognized how
much is due to the weight of the line driving the
fly rapidly through the air. If the angler were
devoting himself to wet-fly fishing on a rough
river, he would avoid such a casting line, and if
he means to fish a chalk stream wet-fly only, he
would do the same. But he would need to be
able to propel his fly and line upstream against
the wind, and to cast a fairly long line not infre-
quently, so that a line with more weight in it
than would be required for a rough river would be
essential on a chalk stream. But if, as is the
wiser course, the angler proposes to fish either wet
or dry, as occasion demands, his equipment must
be still more of a compromise. He must use a
rod which will carry a line that will dry the fly
with sufficient speed, but preferably not a line
of the heaviest class ; and he must trust to the
make of his flies, and to the soaking they get
through trailing in the water before the cast, to get
them to go under on lighting. The knack can
be acquired without difficulty, but if the dry-fly
habit has become inveterate he will need to be
continually watching himself when he desires to
fish wet.

WET- FLY CASTING 121

The line should be flicked as little as possible,
and the angler should try (generally speaking, but
not always — see chapter on Nerves) to float the
gut while letting the fly go under. Then he
secures the double advantage of not lining his
trout and of getting an indication from the move-
ment of the gut should the fly be taken without
his otherwise detecting it. The fly, being once
delivered, may be allowed to come down with the
stream precisely like a dry fly except for its being
under water ; but it can be recovered sooner and
with less disturbance of the surface, because the
fly is drawn under and not along the top of the
water. The withdrawal should, however, be as
gentle as possible, in order to retain as much
moisture as can be in the fly to sink it at the next
cast. If there be enough wind to raise waves, or
even a strong ruffle, this is of less consequence, as
the make of the fly should be such that it can
only float, if at all, while quite dry on perfectly
smooth water. It is in general no use to put up
the ordinary dry flies to fish wet.

16

CHAPTER X
FRANKLY IRRELEVANT

A DRY-FLY MEMORY.

In the Test Valley a good many years ago the coarse
herbage lay drying in the water-meadows in the
heavy swathes in which it had fallen to the scythe,
but all along the boggy edges of the streams and
carriers a tall screen had been left standing shoulder-
high, concealing the angler from the rising fish, but
compelling him, unfortunately, to stand and to fish
overhand instead of keeping low and switching a
horizontal line to his quarry. During the after-
noon a chilly wind from the north-west had
supervened upon the blazing heat that for a
week past had conjured such alluring visions of
the evening rise to end each July day. The sky
was overcast, and a troubled sun watched sulkily
from the far side of the valley, through dun rifts in
the clouds, the approach of two rods to the river-
side. It was almost too early to begin. Scarce
a fly was in the air, and only one sign of any pro-
mise gave any hint of possible success — the horses
in the meadow opposite, driven to madness by the

122

FRANKLY IRRELEVANT 123

Hampshire flies, were charging and careering wildly
about their pasture, heels half the time in air.

Just a cast above the bottom boundary was a
run which promised a moving fish when the trout
began to move, and half an hour's wait in these
exquisite meadows was time well spent, if only
in observing the splendid profusion of life in this
wonderful valley. The tender bloom of the
meadowsweet was at its most perfect, great
^vild purple orchids put up among the boggy
tussocks, while the lush richness of the water-side
herbage baffled description. From some meadow
near came the *' crek, crek " of the landrail — less
common, alas ! than of old — the note of the
snipe, the wailing cry of the pewit, the " coo '* of
the turtle-dove, were punctuated with the queru-
lous gutturals of the moorhen, shyly under cover
in the sedges. Presently a small pale olive rose
from the surface and came drifting down the
wind, then another and another, escaping their
water-enemies below only, too often, to be snapped
up by the screeching swifts that found them out too
soon. Then, in the very neck of the run, a fish put
up, and the serious business of the evening began.

The fly on the cast was a Tup's Indispensable,
then the latest invention of an ingenious West-
Country angler, and, when the red spinner is up, a
very killing fly, but the fish, continuing to feed,
would none of him. Nor was the Red Quill to his
liking, but the first cast of a Ginger Quill on No. 00,

16—2

124 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

covering him correctly, brought him up, and he
fastened. For a second he hesitated, then ripped
the line from the shrieking reel in an upward
rush, leapt into the air, and was off.

By this time the sun's lower limb was resting
on the opposite hill, and the wind should have
dropped dead. But still it came with a certain
bite of chill down the valley from the northward.
Yet, in spite of cold, the long, fleshy forest fly vied
with the mosquito in assaults upon the unpro-
tected portions of the angler, and moths and sedges
began to creep out and flit from flower to flower.
Two other fish putting up in the next hundred
yards were missed, and a small one was landed
and returned. Then, as dusk drew on, the fly was
changed for a large Orange Quill on a No. 2 hook.

A good fish was rising steadily, though not
rapidly, in the next bend, but the Orange Quill,
offered from perhaps too short a range, set him
down with great suddenness. A shy fish ! So
was the next found rising, for he did not wait
even the preliminary wave of the rod to cease
from his impetuous and greedy feeding. Perhaps
the necessary wading through the boggy margin
to get near enough to the water for an effective
cast sent over him a wave that put him down.

The next hundred yards provided no oppor-
tunity for the angler, but at the end of them the
sedgy screen ceased suddenly, and it was possible
to approach the shy quarry with a horizontal

FRANKLY IRRELEVANT 125

cast. Over a bank of weed trailing near the sur-
face an under-water movement seemed to indicate
a fish of some sort. The fly, an Orange Sedge on
a No. 2 hook, dropped lightly on the right spot,
with a line behind it slack enough to let it pass
well over the fish before the inevitable drag set
in. Up came a big black neb. Instinctively the
line tightened, but the fish was already hard in
the weed, and nothing could coax or force him
out. Ten precious minutes wasted, at a time
when minutes were priceless, in vain attempts to
persuade him, before the inevitable break was
effected and a new fly tied on.

A few yards farther on a snag divided the
current, and a foot above it a good fish was taking
merrily every fly that covered him. He was not
proof against the Orange Sedge, and in a moment
he was being led flapping down on the farther
side of the snag. Nothing seemed to intervene
between him and the landing-net, when suddenly
the rod straightened and he was gone. A feel
at the hook in the growing dark proved it to have
broken at the bend. With difficulty another was
mounted, but by this the rise had ceased, and
naught was left for the angler but to feel his
boggy way back through the eerie meadows to
his starting-point, and thence to the village —
disappointed to a certain extent, but with the
disappointment more than tempered by the
amazing charm of this valley of valleys.

CHAPTER XI

ETHICS OF THE WET FLY

In dealing with this subject, I am conscious that
I start with a weight of opinion against me
among the fishermen of chalk streams. I have
known some of them say in a shocked tone, ** But
that is wet- fly !" as if it were some high crime and
misdemeanour to use a wet fly upon a chalk
stream. To make my peace with such I want to
argue this question out, and test and see what it is
about the wet fly which has brought such discredit
upon it among the best sportsmen in the world.

It is axiomatic with many that it is unsuccessful
upon chalk streams. That is not my opinion,
but in itself it is not an objection. If it were
unfairly successful it would be another story.
The object of fly-fishing, whether wet or dry, is
the catching of trout, not anyhow, but by means
refined, clean, delicate, artistic, and sportsmanlike
in the sense that they are fair to the quarry and
fair to the brother angler. There can be no doubt
that the dry fly honestly fulfils all these condi-
tions. Let us see where the wet fly fails.

126

ETHICS OF THE WET FLY 127

It is said the wet-fly man's game is a duffer's
game, which needs neither knowledge nor any
skill beyond enough to cast a long line down-
stream or across and down; that it leads to a
raking of the water, often with two or three flies ;
that it leads to the pricking and scaring of many
fish, to the catching of many undersized trout,
and to the undue disturbance of long stretches of
water, to the detriment of the nerves of the fish
and the sport of other anglers. All this I am
quite willing to accept and to eliminate from the
legitimate all wet-fly fishing which could come
under this description.

What is left to the wet-fly angler ? I venture
to say a mighty pretty, delicate, and delightful
art which resembles dry-fly fishing in that the
fly is cast upstream or across, to individual fish,
or to places where it is reasonable to expect that
a fish of suitable proportions may be found, and
differs from dry-fly fishing only in the amount of
material used in the dressing of the fly, in the
force with which that fly is cast, and in the extreme
subtlety of the indications frequently attending
the taking of the fly by the fish, compared to which
there is a painful obviousness in the taking of the
dry fly. Add to this that it provides means for
the circumventing of bulgers and feeders on larvae,
that it furnishes sport on those numerous occasions
when trout are in position and probably feeding
under water without ever breaking the surface,

128 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

and generally widens the opportunities of sport
for the man who cannot be always on the spot to
seize the best opportunities afforded by a rise of
trout to the floating fly.

Is this method open to any of the objections
attending the downstream raking we concur in
condemning ? Is it a duffer's game ? Is it
easier than dry-fly fishing ? Try and see. Does
it lead to the pricking and scaring of many fish
which follow a dragging fly ? No. Does it un-
duly disturb long stretches of water to the detri-
ment of the brother angler ? Why, it is as easy
to spend an afternoon on a hundred yards as it
is in the purest cult of the dry fly.

If the trout are feeding, I for one fail to see why
they may legitimately be fished for if they are
taking a small proportion of their food on the
surface, but not if they are taking all, or practically
all, of it underneath. There is a sentence from
Francis Francis quoted with approval by Mr.
F. M. Halford, which runs as follows :

" The judicious and perfect application of dry,
wet, and midwater fly-fishing stamps the finished
fly-fisher with the hall-mark of efficiency."

Nothing could be more just if one reads it with
reference to all streams, whether chalk streams or
otherwise ; but to read it distributively so that only
the dry fly may be used on chalk streams, and only
the wet fly on other streams, seems an unnecessary
renunciation of opportunity ; while to read it as

ETHICS OF THE WET FLY 129

meaning that only the dry fly may be used on
chalk streams, while wet or dry fly may be legiti-
mately used on others, carries its own condemna-
tion in logic.

Mr. F. M. Halford, with every desire to be abso-
lutely fair, has, I think, in Chapter II. of " Dry-Fly
Fishing in Theory and Practice," done more than
any other man to discredit the wet fly on chalk
streams, by the implications, first, that the principle
of the dry-fly method — viz., the casting of the fly to
a feeding fish in position — is not applicable to the
wet-fly method, and, secondly, that on the stillest
days, with the hottest sun and the clearest water,
the wet fly is utterly hopeless. On both these
points I respectfully join issue with him.

On all that his book contains on the positive side
about the dry fly I am in practical agreement.
But if the reader considers the rods, the lines,
and the flies, that Mr. Halford recommends, he will
see that they are utterly unsuited to wet-fly fish-
ing, and it would not be surprising that no success
attends them when used for wet-fly work. But if
I am right — and I am — in asserting that, given
reasonably suitable gear, the wet fly may be cast
upstream in chalk streams to a feeding fish in
position (whether surface feeding or not is, I sub-
mit, irrelevant), and that on its day — and there are
many such in the season — it will kill fish alike in
the hottest, brightest, and stillest weather, and on
days and in places and conditions where the dry

17

130 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

fly is hopeless, and also in the roughest of weather,
then I may claim that it is an art worthy to stand
beside the art of the dry fly as a supplementary
resource of the angler that is at once fair, sports-
manlike, and capable of adding immensely to his
enjoyment, his sport, and his opportunities for
using the highest skill, not inferior in any sense
(except in the matter of the avoidance of drag)
to that exercised by the dry-fly expert.

CHAPTER XII
APOLOGIA
Having read through the foregoing pages, I am
(indeed, I could hardly fail to be) conscious
that I have written dogmatically, that I have
used the first person singular with some freedom-
more freedom than I had supposed. But I am
not going to change it. What I had to say,
stretched over a period of years, has been too strong
for me. I wanted to elaborate a system, and all
I have done is to tell my personal experiences
in search of a system. If I have written positively,
I would not have it supposed that I claim to be
a master of angUng, or that I do not incur by the
water-side my full share-perhaps more than my
full sKare— of mistakes, tangles, bungles, disasters.
But, for all that, I claim to be entitled to speak
positively of the things which I have tried and
tested for myself and know of my own knowledge.
No man can really know either these same things
or any other things by reading them in a book
or by accepting them upon any authority, whether
it be that of Mr. F. M. Halford or another.

131 17—2

132 MINOR TACTICS OF THE CHALK STREAM

Nothing presents itself to any two minds in
an identical light. We all see the multicoloured
facets of truth from a different angle. No ex-
perience is the same to two diverse idiosyncrasies,
and the only help which the writing of a book of
this kind can be to others is, not in the laying
down of rules, not in the preaching or advocating
of systems, not in teaching that which the writer
has beaten out by his own experience, but in hints
which start or help trains of observation or
inquiry in the reader's mind, so as to stimulate
him to work out, and prove, by personal thought
and experiment, to make his own, the conclusions
which his own personality is capable of drawing
from the test.

In this way only is progress possible. In this,
and in doing something to assure that, in the new
learning and in the new systems which come along,
that which is of value in the systems of the past
shall not be forgotten, but shall be transmuted
to the uses of the present and the future, is all
the justification I can plead for the foregoing
pages.

In giving records of my own experience by the
water-side rather than in laying down a system,
I am not asking others to do as I do because I say
it, or to accept anything from me. I would have
no weight allowed by any man to tradition or
authority until it is proved by himself ; no man's
words accepted as final because they are his;

APOLOGIA 133

everything questioned, tested, and brought to the
dock of practical experience. If I have ventured,
indirectly, to preach at all, the sum of my preaching
is not a system, a method, but an attitude of
mind — the importance of being earnest, the power
of faith, the observant eye, the unfettered
judgment, independence of tradition, and, above
all, the inquiring mind.

With these words I commit my pages to the
judgment or kindness of my brother anglers with
a cordial

"Tight Lines."

Explicit.

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.

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