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 whirlpools 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 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 sufficiently 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
larvæ. But of these more anon.
OF THE STAGES IN A RISE OF DUNS.
It has often been the subject of admiring comment 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 unanimity 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 temperature, atmosphere, barometric pressure, and what not,
the trout discern when the flies will rise, and are there in readiness.
Is it necessary to suppose 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 the 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 ordinar’”
stupid could fail to appreciate that game is afoot, and to put himself
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 presenting the phenomenon known as “bulging.”
This is the first stage of the rise.
Presently, as the swarm of drifting nymphs becomes more numerous,
escaping units, first in sparse, then in increasing numbers, reach the
surface, burst their swathing envelopes, and spread their canvas to the
gales as _subimagines_. Presently 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. Conditions 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 indifferent, 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 consolation in
tailing. Often these will take a dry 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 willing 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,
however, 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. Presently I saw a brace bulging
vigorously over some 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. 1 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.