THE SEASON OF THE DRY-FLY.
WITH to-day ends the month which in the fisherman's calendar is consecrated to the catching of trout with the dry-fly. Every period in the angling season has some sport which arrives in it at its special excellence,—in March and April, spring salmon-fishing; in August, the sea-trout; in September and October, the autumn salmon. So, too, from the middle of April to nearly the end of July is the dry-fly season, because dry-fly is at that time the finest fishing whifh these islands can offer. Only of late years has it grown into a cult, but in reality it is the oldest form of fly-fishing. When man first saw a trout taking a small gnat and reflected that Wm taste might be turned to his own advantage, it was natural that he should try to imitate exactly the gnat and its manner of alighting upon the water. Izaak Walton's flies were nearer the dry than the wet, and his theory of the sport was that the natural fly should be closely imitated and put over the fish/tout- ing. " W hen you fish with a fly, if it be possible, let no part of your line touch the water, but your fly only." The wet-fly, which if it resembles anything in Nature must be taken as a drowned and derelict animal, was adopted to suit the swifter streams of the North, where it is hard to see your fish, and ivhere the current will speedily submerge the most delicately dropped fly. If the South of England is the classic land of angling, as it has every claim to be, then dry-fly, which is the mode best fitted to its clear, slow waters, may be taken as the classic foim of the sport. Classic it is, too, in another sense. Angling is the "contemplative man's recreation,"—so we are told on the best authority. The fisherman who would live up to the literary ideal of his craft is the peaceable man who loves quiet, and country sights, and books, and milkmaids' choruses (if be can find them), who spends "idly meditative days," and has only a modest affection for violent exercise. He is a follower of Walton rather than of Richard Franck, who detested bookish folk, and liked rough hills and salmon-rivers. But what kinship has he with the young athlete breasting a mountain torrent with a salmon-rod, or laboriously whipping a North Country stream with a cast of wet-flies from dawn till sunset ? The man who stands waist-deep for hours in a Sutherland river in early spring with small ice-floes cannoning off him has not much leisure for reflection or the sentimental contemplation of natural beauties. There is very little beauty for him to contemplate, except the blue-grey swirls of the stream and the misty hills; and his reflections as, having lost a good fish, he stamps his frozen feet on the bank are apt to be profane rather than profound. An angler in the Lake of Darkness has as much kinship with the true Wal- tonian as he. But the dry-fly fisherman is in the straight line of descent. He does not return to his inn with a numbed body and cramped muscles. His movements are deliberate and comfortable. Save when a the is on, he has no occasion to hurry, and even then his art demands that he do all things patiently and quietly. There are long hours in his day when no taking thought will enable him to get a trout, and then he can recline below the 'trees and read, or sleep, or write verses, or do anything else which the correct tradition prescribes. Moreover, he does not wrestle with sleet-shoWers and ice-floes, and struggle along. in heavy waders. Lightly but becomingly clad, he saunters along the crisp turf under a June sky in an almost theatrical setting of natural beauty. The water- meadows are ablaze with flowers, sheets of white ranunculus and sheaves of yellow iris adorn the streams, and lilac, haw- thorn, horse-chestnut, and a hod of blossoming shrubs scent Rie air and delight the eye. Small wonder that angling under such conditions should appeal to many who have very little title *to' the name of sportsman ; for sport is only one of the delights which are offered. The dilettante may flourish by the June chalk-stream, but you will look in vain for him on the wintry Never.
After the delectable environment in which it is pursued, the
great charm of dry-fly fishing lies in its of 'technical merits. For one thing, it is the only form of angling in which a man must fully understand how to cast a fly. You may fish for salmon all your life with much success, but your first day on a chalk-stream will be a revelation in incapacity. So long as you can get out a long enough line with a salmon- rod the stream will straighten it for you, and the rest of the business is simply the working of your fly against the current. Your fly is heavy and easy to cast, and the weight of your rod demands that you put your shoulders into it. You do not see your fish, and it is immaterial within a yard or two where you put your fly. But in dry-fly fishing you use a light nine-foot rod, you cast with the wrist, your fly must fall lightly on the water, and within a f4w inches of a mark. Moreover, the stream is not a Scottish torrent with bare banks and a wide expanse of water. As often as not it is so small that you can almost leap across it, and if it is not shadowed by trees and dense bushes, the surface is likely to be studded with masses of weeds, rushes; and water-lilies. You have, therefore, to Cast within a small space, and to avoid a hundred chances of entanglement. The present writer, who has fished almost since he could stand, will not soon forget the bitter disillusion of his first day with the dry-fly. After scaring every trout in the' river, he was gently but firmly taken in hand by the keeper. First, it was shown to him beyond possibility of doubt that he did not understand the rudiments of casting. When these had been mastered, he was set to cast at pieces of paper on a lawn till he could make certain of getting close to his mark. Then, and only then, was he allowed, in a mood of proper humility, to approach the river. Again, in dry-fly fishing there is much of the stalker's art. In the clear water you see your fish afar off. You notice through . your Zeiss glasses what fly he is taking, and you select your lure accordingly. Then, after a careful calculation of distance, you put it a few inches from him up stream, so that without any drag on the line it may float doWn bewitchingly over his nose. If he refuses it, or if you scare him, you still study his movements, and put the fly over him again. A good trout caught after an hour's stalk leaves a glow of satisfaction which no accidental capture of a monster will give. It is the issue of self-conscious, concentrated endeavour. To be sure, there are a few drawbacks. These large, shapely fish will not fight with the fury of their cousins, half their size, in the North, and next morning at breakfast they will not taste as sweet 'as a dish of dusky moorland trout. But when all is said, dry-fly fishing remains the cream of the sport. A duffer may catch a big ferox with a minnow or land the largest salmon of the year, but he will make a poor display with the dry-fly. It is essentially a game for the expert, and the expert alone. You may explode a Charge of dynamite on the hanks without disturbing the iron nerves of the salmon, but with the fish of the chalk- fitreams you must he as wary and noiseless as ail Indian hunter. Whether we consider the technical difficultiA of the casting or the element of " stalking" in the o sport, we must rank it among forms, of trout-fishing, as we rank driving grouse ousts' among forms of shooting. Our own preference may lie in other directions, but we are bound to admit that success in this is the surest evidence of skill.
Dry-fly fishing has another quality of the classic tradition in its accessibility. The true disciple of Walton is not the fervent sportsman who makes a profession of his amusement, but the busy man, dwelling often in cities, who snatches a feW hours of recreation from a strenuous life. Such a man cannot get to Norway or Lapland or Newfoundland; be cannot even get to Sutherland or Connemara, except in a serious vacation. But all round London—in Kent, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hampshire —within a short train journey, there is good dry-fly fishing to be had at the season of the year when the City, or the Law Courts, or Parliament demands his presence, and yet when the country wears its most bewitching dress. A man may leave town after his day's work and be in time for the evening rise, and the week-end will give the busiest many hours by the river. Such holidays are in the true sense recreative, bringing into our artificial civilisation a breath from a fresher world. Sir Edward Grey has written the classical praise of this, the finest element in the classical conception of the sport, trans- lating Walton's old-world sentiment into the language of our modern life. Those who have this fortunate taste will keep their vitality unimpaired when narrower souls slacken and flag. "It is borne about with us like a happy secret; it draws the thoughts towards it continually, as Ruskin says that the luminous distance in a picture attracts the eye, or as the gleam of water attracts it in a landscape."
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