A Timely Tip
Some streams are likely to be occasionally swollen or roiled by spring rains or by the June rise. At such times, when not too much discolored for fly-fishing, the angler will do well to avoid the channel of the stream and cast his flies along the edges, where the water is clearer. This tip may add many a fish to an otherwise scanty creel.
Likely Places
When the stream is at its ordinary stage, and clear, the riffles and eddies are the most likely places at this season, and will be pretty sure to reward the careful angler. In fishing such places the flies should be floated over them, allowing them to sink below the surface occasionally. In addition to the flies mentioned for May, the stone fly, gray drake and brown drake will be found useful, especially in localities where the May-fly or sand-fly puts in an appearance. During the hottest days of summer, when the water is warmer, trout are more apt to be found at the mouths of small spring brooks, or in the deepest portions of the stream.
Management of Flies
Churning the flies up and down, or wiggling and dancing them, should be avoided; the only motion, if any, should be a very slight fluttering, such as a drowning insect might make as it floats down stream. Strike lightly. Should the trout leap after being hooked, as it sometimes does in the shallow water of riffles, lower the tip slightly for half a second, but recover it immediately—in other words it is simply a down and up movement about as quickly as it can be done.
Lowering the Tip
And talking of lowering the tip—it may not seem out of place to make a few observations concerning that proceeding which some anglers do not seem to understand, or at least do not fully appreciate. The rule of lowering the tip to a leaping fish is a very old one, centuries old in fact, and is founded on the experience of anglers for many generations past. Its usefulness and reasonableness is as manifest in the twentieth century as at any former time.
But because some thoughtless anglers at the present day have succeeded in landing a leaping and well-hooked fish without observing the rule, they decry it as entirely unnecessary, and declare that it ought to be relegated to the limbo of obsolete and fanciful notions and useless practices. The iconoclast usually attacks his images without thought or reason, and often in sheer ignorance. A little reflection might enlighten him and cause him to stay his hand.
Origin of the Rule