are accustomed to less experienced fish, that all is well. You throw
your flies, two or three, a yard above the ripple, and wait to strike.
But the ripples instantly cease, and on the surface of the water you see
the long thin track of a broad back and huge dorsal fin. The trout has
been, not frightened--he is in no hurry--but disgusted by your clumsy
cast, which would readily have taken in a sea-trout or a loch-trout. They
of Kennet and Test know a good deal better than to approach your wet
flies. A few minutes of this failure reduce the novice to the despair of
Tantalus. _He_ never was set to such a torture as casting over big
feeding trout and never getting a rise. You feel inclined to throw your
fly-book bodily at the heads of the trout and bid them take their choice
of its contents. That method of angling would be quite as successful as
angling for large southern trout in the northern manner. So the novice
either loses his temper and walks away to take his ease and some shandy-
gaff at the Bear, or he sits down to smoke, or he potters botanically
among the flowering water-weeds. Then a southern angler comes near, and
is presently playing a trout which the northern man has not "put down,"
or frightened into total abstinence for the day. Then the true method of
fishing for trout in a clear stream is illustrated in practice, and a
beautiful and most delicate art it proves to be.

First, the angler notices a rising fish. Then he retires to a safe
distance from the bank, outflanks the trout, and comes round in his rear.
As fish always feed with their heads up stream, it is necessary in such
clear water to fish for them from below, from as far below as possible.
Every advantage is taken of cover, and the angler soon acquires the
habits of a skirmisher. A tuft of rushes, an inequality in the ground,
or an alder bush conceals him; behind this he kneels, and gets his tackle
in order. He uses only one fly, not two or three, as people do on the
Border. He carefully measures his ground, flicking his cast through the