Bringing Him Down to the Net.
It is considered to be undoubtedly a disadvantage in a club water to include one or two pre-eminently brilliant anglers, as it seems to breed a fear of their always being able to catch the easy fish, so that the more difficult ones only are left for the ordinary angler to attack. Not long ago I was invited to fish a certain well-known beat on the Itchen, but my host, in inviting me, said, "I don't know if it is much use, for So-and-So fishes our water, and has caught all the easy fish." This may be true in a sense, but favourite positions are always re-taken by other fish if the former occupant is killed. Just as a house in Grosvenor Square, or some well-known centre of fashion, will always secure a tenant, so a position where the trend of the current brings the flies quietly and steadily over a fish will never remain unoccupied. It is not so much the fish that is easy as his position, and therefore the ordinary duffer need never despond. One thing is certain—that the brilliant angler will never scare fish unnecessarily, and I would rather fish behind such an one than a so-called angler who, having successfully put his fish down by bad angling, proceeds to stand upright and possibly walk along the bankside close to the water's edge, scaring many a fish on his way up, utterly regardless of his brother anglers. Indeed, in this respect I think the etiquette of angling is hardly sufficiently considered in these modern days. Who is there that has not met, on club waters, the ardent and unsuccessful angler who wanders up and down, covering vast stretches of water, and effectually scaring many otherwise takeable fish, in the vain hope that he may find some purblind trout idiotic enough to take his proffered fly? I consider that unwritten etiquette demands that the utmost care should be taken by fishermen to do all in their power to prevent spoiling the sport of those who may be following. I can well recollect a day when the wind was foul, and there was one stretch of water sheltered on the windward side by a thick belt of trees, and in this stretch were located many heavy fish. Working up to that water, I found an ardent ignoramus doing "sentry-go" up and down the stream, walking on the very edge of the water. I presume he thought that if he only persevered he would eventually find the "fool of the family," but the result—the inevitable result—was that the fish were scared throughout that whole length for the rest of that day, as that stretch was bare and sadly lacking in shelter.
In considering the merits and demerits of dry-fly fishing, one cannot be altogether blind to the fact that down-stream fishing must inevitably prick and therefore educate many more fish than the floating fly. This being so, it is still more inexplicable that in former days, in chalk-stream waters, our forerunners were able to account for far heavier baskets of trout than we are, despite the heavy restocking our streams now receive, to their great advantage; and we necessarily come back to the old point, what can we do to secure an adequacy of free-rising fish? Is our system of fishing the rise wrong? Or does the mischief lie more in our river, water, and weed management? And can we so improve these as to obtain the desired results? Angling is now so much sought after, chalk-stream and other similar waters command such high rents, that surely it is worth the while of those interested in the sport to initiate and carry through some exhaustive inquiry into the subject.
CHAPTER V.
THE MAY FLY.
THE May fly is up! Every year, about the first week in June, telegrams to this effect are hurriedly despatched to those favoured few who own or rent water where this member of the ephemeridæ disports himself. It used to be called the May fly Carnival. There are, however, grave disadvantages in connection with our friend that greatly discount the apparent advantages. Fish gorged with this luscious food are wont to try a course of semi-starvation after their over-indulgence, and for a long time will not look at smaller and more wholesome diet. Then, to my thinking, a May fly is a horrible thing to cast with. It is not at all like casting with the more delicate duns or quill gnats. There is a clumsy feeling about it; it is exceedingly difficult to dry, and if you catch a fish a change of fly is at once necessary, the old chawed-up imitation being rendered useless. It is also not easy to get exactly the right pattern to suit, though for choice the small dark-winged May fly has given me the best results. It is, unless you live near your water, very difficult to hit off the precise day—you are always too early or too late; you are told "You should have been there yesterday; there was a grand rise of fly, and the fish were simply mad after them, and no one was on the water"—and so on. Cheery news, no doubt, when you find the fish all lying near the bottom. When they really are on, there is excitement enough; mad splashes all round you, frequently made by the smaller fish. Your proffered imitation may produce a rise or two, but somehow or other the fish don't take hold as you think they ought. You are inclined to lose your calmness of mental balance, to cast without sufficient care and with a half-dried fly. In desperation you put on a fair-sized red quill, fish more carefully, and probably get better results.
The main charm, however, lies in the fact that the advent of Ephemera Danica does bring up the big fish of the water in a way that no other fly food does or can. Hence its popularity, and in waters where the May fly is hatched in quantity, and there are heavy, big fish that as a rule find cannibalism pay better than duns, then the May fly has a real value. In other waters, however, were these big monsters taken out in order to secure a larger numerical stock of comparatively small but sizeable fish, I would have none of it; I would prefer to extend my angling season rather than take a large bulk of it condensed into one week of questionable pleasure.