THE SCORPION
Some time ago a friend in Canada sent me a sort of water scorpion made of rubber, one of the most life-like things I have ever seen equipped with a hook. When I received it I thought I might never have occasion to use it, but at the week- end I fished for several hours without result. There was no rise and, whether through my handling of the flies or pure bad luck, I failed to take .a fish. When I reached the place where a stream tumbles into the lake, I was weary, and stopped to look at my flybox. The rubber scorpion took my eye. With little faith, I exchanged it for the tail fly.' The scorpion came back as I gathered line, turning it round my left hand, and the cast was almost completely recovered when a fish struck—a good fighting fish that rose and danced on the surface and then bored down. He was on the scorpion. What a purist would have said I dared not think, but 1 was delighted to have caught something at last!
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