stream at the head of a pool are well worth fishing. Anyone new to this kind of fishing would do well to make a careful note of the appearance of the water in which he has his first success, and remember the pace at which his fly was floating when the fish took it. Having got these two things clearly into his head, he had better at first confine his fishing to water of a similar appearance and pace.

Sea trout might reasonably be expected to be uneducated and careless about the correct floating of the fly, but this is emphatically not the case. They do sometimes look at a fly which is dragging, but they do not take it. Occasionally-very occasionally-they have taken my fly when it was lying on its side; but I think it is no exaggeration to say that ninety-nine per cent. of those caught with a dry fly took it when both wings were cocked and the fly floated free of any suspicion of drag. Nothing but the youngest parr would look at a fly on its back with the hook in the air. I have had very convincing evidence of the dislike of sea trout to a dragging fly. On two occasions, when I could watch every movement of the fish while casting over them, they refused the fly when it was dragging, but took it at the next cast when floating correctly. I also saw others frightened away by the same fault. The avoidance of drag is of course difficult, but it is not quite so difficult as a fisherman coming straight from a gently-flowing chalk-stream to a violent rush of water would expect. The pace of the stream does not prevent a fly from floating correctly, provided the water runs straight, and the casting-line lies in water moving at the same pace as the fly.

The next thing to learn is to spot the fish. This is not easy at first, and the best way to learn it is, perhaps, to get somebody who is an expert at it to point out as many fish as possible. Sea trout always lie on, or practically on, the bottom; and this position, coupled with the quickly moving water and varying light, makes it a difficult matter to see them. For some time I failed altogether, but after having many pointed out to me I gradually learnt what to look for, and how to look for it; and that is half the battle in seeing anything. The body of the fish seems very transparent and of a light bluish-grey colour, but the tail appears in the water a darker slaty-blue and

more opaque than the body, and is apt to give him away. The waving of the front fins will settle the question whether a suspicious-looking object is a fish or not. Bands of light can be seen travelling from time to time down the pool, and by following these with the eye some of the bed of the river can be searched. A very favourite place for a sea trout to lie is just up-stream of a big stone which breaks or nearly breaks the surface. It looks most uncomfortable, but they seem to prefer these positions to lying below a stone, as a brown trout would do. Even the big fish often lie in quite shallow water. They seem to choose positions where the bottom is smooth and unbroken. Of course, much of the water is too rough to see into, but in most of the pools places can be found where with practice one can locate the fish. It is quite possible -in fact, it is much more usual-to catch fish which have not previously been seen; but it is worth while to learn the art of seeing them, not only because it leads to more success, but also because it adds enormously to the excitement and pleasure in the fishing. There was one pool in which we had no success at all with a dry fly, though we killed fish in it, especially during rain and late at night, with a wet fly. The top of it was a kind of whirlpool, and the rest was very deep and had a very smooth surface.

Certain sea trout in the river might always be found in practically the same position. These fish, which soon received Christian names as well as other attentions at our hands, did not move up in a spate. They shifted towards or away from the bank as the river rose or fell, but they seemed to think they had swum far enough, and preferred to stay where they were rather than continue their journey to the lake. One of them, who was christened Black Joe,' owing to his remarkable colour, gave me a great deal of amusement. He lay so near the shore and was so dark in colour that my gaffer suggested, after I had fished for him without result for a week, that he was sick, and had better be removed from the river with the gaff. I thought the fish sulky and ugly rather than ill, and refused to attempt any such methods of catching him. After three weeks' fishing, the day came when Joe's appetite, which till then had entirely failed him, was quickened by the sight of a cinnamon sedge. He

looked no prettier out of the water than in it, but I pardoned his appearance and was much delighted with his capture. He was an old cock with a large hooked beak, and he ought to have weighed 13 lb. instead of 10. I had some of his sles examined, and the verdict was as follows; age 8 to 9 years, the first 3 of which he had spent in the river. Since then he had spawned two or three times. His removal seemed popular in the river, as his place was immediately taken by three others, overcrowding which Joe would never have allowed in his lifetime. These fish, however, moved up two days later.

Another special friend of mine was Gamlehaga Bill. He took one of my red quills quite early in our acquaintance, but the hook broke in his mouth. About a fortnight later I very nearly persuaded him to take a blue pill fished wet. I got no further rise out of Bill, and the last time I saw him was the Sunday morning on which I left the river. We gave him a parting present of a digestive' biscuit, floated in tempting pieces over his head. There was no hidden danger in the biscuit, but Bill thought there was, and at the second piece he turned sulkily away into the stream, and there we left him.

I was never able to discover any difference in the attitude of sea trout which were ready to take a fly from that of those which were not. They were always lying on the bottom and showing no movement except an occasional wave of their bodies from side to side. It was necessary to keep out of sight, though the natives had the common fault of being careless in this respect. Sea trout see a human being fairly quickly, and they have an annoying little trick of lying still and pretending to have seen nothing at all.

On several occasions I was able to watch every movement of the fish while the fly was floating over it. The trout in each case made no sign until the fly was passing over its head. If it meant to rise it turned quickly round on noticing the fly, and shot down stream and towards the surface, until it reached a point just below the fly. It then steadied itself in a vertical position before actually making the rise. The fly was taken from three to six feet below the fish's resting-place. The first movements were very rapid, but the actual rise was made quite slowly and in several different ways. The whole move

ment reminded me of a man in the deep field, racing back towards the boundary to make a catch from a big hit, and steadying himself as he gets under the ball. Unfortunately, even sea trout s metimes misjudge and drop the catches. In making the rise the fish either just breaks the surface with its lips, or makes a head and tail rise, or rolls right out of the water like a porpoise, and takes the fly as it turns downwards again. The smaller ones now and then jump clean out of the water, drown the fly, and then pick it up from below. In some cases-apparently when he is too late to reach a point below the fly-the fish gulps it in with his head pointing down

stream.

The Norwegian gaffer told me that a sea trout which missed the fly did not rise again for ten days. How he made this calculation I do not know. At any rate it was not always correct. It was the exception to rise a fish a second time, but members of our party succeeded in doing so occasionally. Of all the good moments one has in this kind of fishing, I think the moment of the actual rise is the best. The sight of a great silvery trout rolling solemnly out at the floating fly sends down my back a fresh quiver of surprise, excitement and delight every time I see it. Great self-restraint is needed to prevent striking too soon. The actual rise is made so slowly that it is almost impossible to wait for what seems an age before the great mouth closes and the fish disappears. That is the moment to strike, and to strike hard. It is necessary to use gut strong enough to stand a considerable jerk. If all goes well and the hook is driven home at the right moment, I feel that rare sensation of having hit a half volley in the middle of the bat. The fish who merely shows his lips is the easiest to hook, because the rise is over so quickly that one has no time to strike too soon. On English chalk-streams it is rare to hook a brown trout far back in the mouth; but luckily sea trout appear to take the fly, if they take it at all, with a confident gulp which gives one the chance of driving the hook into the tough angle of the mouth, or perhaps (which is best of all) into the tongue.

It is difficult to understand why sea trout take the dry fly as readily as they do. On this river there was not often much natural fly on the water. On certain days a

fair sprinkling of grey duns, some red-bodied duns, and from time to time some small dark fly, appeared for an hour or two. Towards the end of July, at about 9.30 p.m., numbers of large sedges hatched on the banks, but these very seldom got on to the water during daylight; whether they did so late at night I do not know. I opened a number of fish, but the results, on the whole, were meagre. I found occasionally a good many grey dun nymphs and subimagos in their stomachs. In many there was nothing at all. In the majority there were a few small grey dun nymphs with the wings not much developed, corresponding in size to about 00 hooks. I also found in different fish one or two blue-bottles, a few sedges, a daddy-longlegs and some animals which looked like short, pale-green centipedes. I very seldom saw any number of sea trout feeding on natural flies; and it was unusual to see a large fish rise at all. If a rise was seen, the fish could generally be tempted by the artificial fly.

The best flies to use were Wickham's Fancy, Cinnamon Sedge and Grey Quill, size No. 10. It is advisable to take rather a larger size for the late evening, and rather a smaller size for days when the fish are coming short. The Grey Quill was an excellent fly, but it had one disadvantage; it was very hard to see in rough water. One fish, who was quite easy to watch, left his place and carefully examined a Silver Sedge, but thinking, I suppose, that it was too large for him at that time in the morning, he dropped back without rising. I gave him a smaller Grey Quill, and he took it as though he liked Grey Quills. The fight which followed was in rough water full of rocks and miniature waterfalls. The fish was fresh-run and very strong. He kept fighting for the pockets behind the rocks in which to get his wind, while I tried to guide and pull him out of the pockets into the little falls and runs, and so increase his exertions and prevent his getting any rest. To add to my difficulties, I had to run through the water to pass him round the outside of an island of stones. Disaster often seemed imminent, but never quite occurred; and he was gaffed at the tail of the island-a perfect fish of 11 lb.

The flies should be strongly tied with plenty of very stiff tackle and well oiled before use. They do not last long, and it is poor economy to fish with a draggled fly,