CHAPTER II

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.