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 offered him; but a wet
Greenwell’s Glory was too much for him, and he turned and took it first
cast. He 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 downstream 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often rush for a fly that is being withdrawn under water.
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 larvæ, but though at times I have caught fish thus
rising with sunk flies, I am inclined to doubt their taking nymphs or
larvæ, 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.