CHAPTER III

SUBAQUEOUS HAPPENINGS IN ART

OF MEDICINE FOR BULGERS.

For many a year bulging trout were the despair of my life, and in those days I would gladly have said “Amen” to the opinion expressed in a letter to the _Fishing Gazette_ of March 13, 1909, by the angler who writes over the pen-name of “Ballygunge,” that when trout were bulging you “might as well chuck your hat at them” as a fly. Many times had I vainly plied them with Gold-ribbed Hare’s Ear, as recommended by Mr. F. M. Halford, as well as most of the current imitations of duns on the water, and Wickhams, Tags, and other fancy flies to boot. Hoping against hope, I never gave up trying for those aggravating fish, and one day, towards the end of a bad exhibition of bulging by the trout, I actually caught a brace, and lost a third, on a Pope’s Green Nondescript—a dun tied with starling wing, red hackle and whisk, and a dark green body ribbed with broad flat gold.

On many occasions since I have found that fly kill well at the beginning of a rise, and it may be that on the occasion spoken of the trout which I got were on the verge of giving up bulging in favour of the winged dun. But I was not satisfied. Then the recollection of a visit to the Tweed struck me with the notion that on that water all the trout practically bulged all the time, and that with their wet-fly patterns Tweed anglers were able to give a good account of themselves, and I searched among Tweed patterns for the nearest analogue to Pope’s Green Nondescript. I thought I found it in Greenwell’s Glory, if varied by exchanging for the hen blackbird wing a starling wing. The likeness was not very exact, but it was close enough to experiment on. The point that I wanted to achieve was to combine with the colours of Pope’s Green Nondescript the type of dressing special to the Tweed Greenwell’s Glory. Rough, slim upright wings, well split, and standing well apart when wet, made of several thicknesses of feather so as to absorb water, and not to give it up readily when cast; body spare, consisting of the waxed primrose tying silk only, closely ribbed with fine gold wire, and one or at most two turns of a furnace hen’s hackle with ginger points, no whisk (whisks only help flotation), and a rather rank hook to take the fly under. The type of dressing is to be found applied to all his patterns in Webster’s “Angler and the Loop Rod.”

Whether it was because I had faith in my medicine, or whether any other cause was at work, I know not, but the experiment was, despite some misses due to failure to judge the right moment to pull home the hook, an immediate success.

Bulging trout are bold feeders, and seem to mind being cast over less than do those which are taking surface food; but they are much more difficult to cover accurately, because they rush from side to side and up and down, and the odds are that, if you cast to one spot, the trout is careering off in pursuit of a nymph to right or left of it. But once the trout sees the fly, the chances of his taking it are far better than are the chances that a surface-feeding trout will take the floating dun which covers him. The fly is allowed to drag in the stream, so as to be thoroughly wet, and is then cast upstream to the feeding fish in all respects like a floating fly, except that it is not dried or allowed to float. The weight of the reel-line will probably be enough to dry the gut, so that the risk of lining your trout is minimized, only the fly and the first link or so of gut going under before it reaches him. I found it best to tie this pattern on gut, and, dressed as described, it has been worth many a good bulger to me, apart from its value for general purposes.

Later on the value of Tup’s Indispensable fished wet impressed me much, and its resemblance to a nymph induced me to give it a trial upon bulging trout. For wet-fly purposes this is as near the dressing as I am at liberty to give: Primrose tying silk lapped down the hook from head to tail, a pale blue or creamy whisk of hen’s feather as soft as possible and not long, three or four turns of coarser untwisted primrose sewing silk at the tail, body rather fat, of a mixed dubbing of a creamy pink (invented by Mr. R. S. Austin, the well known angler and fly-dresser of Tiverton), and a soft blue dun hackle, very short in the fibre, at the head, the dressing being preferably finished at the shoulder behind the hackle. When this fly is thoroughly soaked it has a wonderfully soft and translucent, insect-like effect. It proved even more successful than Greenwell’s Glory, and with one or other I am almost always able to give a good account of bulgers instead of coming empty away.

OF UNDER-WATER TAKING, ITS INDICATIONS, AND THE TIME TO STRIKE.

Friends with whom I have discussed the use of the upstream wet fly on chalk streams have frequently said to me: “But how are you to know when the trout takes, and when to strike?” It is a very pertinent question, and the answer is not to be given in a word. Often the indications which bid you pull home the hook are so subtle and inconspicuous that the angler is at a loss to account for the miracle which is evidenced by his hooped rod and protesting reel, but even in the roughest water something helps the angler to divine the moment for action. In a subsequent section, under the heading “The Grey-Brown Shadow,” will be found an account of a day’s sport with the wet fly in an upstream wind so rough as to throw the river into waves. The flash of the fish as it turns to take the fly may often be seen, so dimly and so momentarily as to be apt to escape notice if one does not know what to look for; but I have on several occasions even divined it through water which reflected a bright white glare, and seemed opaque to the eye. If on these occasions a hooked trout had not proved the truth of my observation, I could not have sworn to having certainly seen anything move; but there through the surface, which looked at the angle of view impenetrable to the eye, I did seem to glimpse a faint pink flash that corresponded to no movement on the surface, and there was the fish soundly hooked, and no fluke about it.

Often under an opposite bank, when the light will not permit you to see your gut or fly, you will see a trout suddenly ascending to near the top of the water, and as suddenly sinking; then, if you tighten, ten to one your hook is firmly in his jaws, and you see him shaking his head savagely at the unexpected restraint upon his liberty ere he makes his first rush.

When fish are bulging, the moment of taking the fly is generally marked by a swirl, and the angler should strike immediately. Fortunately, a wet-fly strike, even if misconceived or mistimed, is far less likely, so long as the fish is clean missed and not lined, to alarm him than is a strike with the dry fly, because the wet fly comes out through the water at a point far below the fish instead of being drawn along the surface.

In glassy glides, which are always fast water, one either sees the fish turn to the fly, or, if the light prevents it, one sees a little crinkle, or break, work up through the water to the surface, which warns the angler to strike. Often the gut lying on the surface goes under as the fish draws in the fly, and alike in daylight and moonlight it acts as a float; and even if the fly be taken too deep below water for any other indication to be in time, it will warn the angler to attend to business. An ingenious angler, as elsewhere explained, has conceived and utilized successfully the idea of oiling his gut cast for fishing wet directly upstream in rapid water, and an excellent device it is for its occasion.

But perhaps the commonest indication of an under-water taking in water of slow or moderate pace is an almost imperceptible shallow humping of the water over the trout. It is caused by the turn of the fish as he takes the fly, and when the angler sees it it is time to fasten. If he waits until the swirl has reached and broken the surface (and it may not be violent enough to do so), he may be too late. If the fly drops directly over the fish, that shallow hump seems often almost simultaneous with the lighting of the fly; but if the cast be wide, your trout will not infrequently dart a yard or more to a wet fly—when for a dry fly he would do no such thing—and then the angler has a warning of the coming of the shallow hump on the surface which tells him that the iron is hot. It may be questioned, however, whether it is not more difficult to time correctly the strike for which one has had such warning than one which comes without warning.

In my experience, the trout which takes under-water is generally very soundly hooked. A trout taking floaters on the surface frequently sips them in through a narrowly-opened slit of mouth, but an under-water feeder draws in the fly by an extension of the gills which carries it in with a full gulp of water.

In the effort to divine the indications which call for striking with the wet fly I confess I find a subtle fascination and charm, and, when success attends me, a satisfaction beside which the successful hooking of a fish which rises to my floating fly seems second-rate in its sameness and comparative obviousness and monotony of achievement.

OF ROUGH WATER AND GREY-BROWN SHADOW.

It was blowing up freshly from the south-west as the train ran into Winchester one April a year or two back, and ere the water-meadows were reached the distinct bite in the wind had given ample warning that, maugre the crisp yellow sunshine, 11.30 clanging from the cathedral spires left ample time to get down to the water-side and put rod and tackle together before the big dark olives or the smaller and rather lighter olives, which warn one to put up a Gold-ribbed Hare’s Ear, put in an appearance. April was three parts through, yet the backwardness of the season made conditions correspond more nearly to three weeks earlier in the normal year.

Soon everything was in readiness, and a couple of dark Rough Olives, tied on gut, with dark starling wing, heron herl body dyed in onion dye and ribbed with fine gold wire, and hackle and whisk of ginger, lightly dyed olive, were put into the damper to soak, on the chance that the wet fly might pay better than the dry.

Noon and the quarter-past chimed from the belfry, and then a big dark olive drifted on to an eddy near by, and, lifted out on the meshes of a landing-net, was identified. The hint was enough. One of the flies in soak—tied on No. 1 hooks—was knotted on, and the surface was scanned for the first dimple. Presently it was located—such a tiny, infinitesimal, dacelike dimple, hinting rather than proving the movement of a trout. It was hardly noticeable in the turmoil made by the strong ruffle of the upstream wind against the somewhat full current of the stream. It was rather far across for accurate casting in such a wind, and presently a sudden gust slammed the line down upon the spot with such a splash as no self-respecting trout could be expected to endure.

A movement upstream was prescribed by the conditions, and presently another dimple like the last was spotted in a more favourable position. It was repeated after an interval, but no fly was to be seen on the surface; so, without an attempt at drying, the Rough Olive was despatched on his mission, and lit a foot or so above the spot. Again, and once more, it did so, and then there was a hint of a grey-brown flicker in the hollow of a wave. By instinct rather than reason the hand went up, and the arch of the rod showed that the steel had gone home. In due course the trout—a fish of fourteen inches—was landed, and the angler proceeded upward.

He soon found, however, that to reach and cover the trout satisfactorily it behoved him to cross, and tackle them from the other side, and he made his way to the footbridge. On the way down, on the main stream he saw another hint of a rise in midstream, where the waves were highest. The wind served him well, and the fly was over the trout in no time. For four or five casts there was no response; then again that grey-brown shadow for a moment in the trough of a wave, mounting rod, a screaming reel, and a vigorous trout was battling for his life.

Arrived presently at the desired spot, the wet Rough Olive was taken off and a dry-fly pattern mounted and duly oiled, and offered to three fish in succession, with the result that they all went down. Then back once more to the wet-fly, and thrice more ere 1.30 struck there was the faint flash of grey-brown under water, the same instinctive response, a spirited battle for life (successful in one instance), and then the rise petered out and not a fish was stirring. And though at 2.30 a strong rise of the smaller olive came on, and lasted till 4.30, keeping hundreds of swallows and martins busy, yet not another fish put up a neb. Perhaps it was because the sun had gone in.

There are those who wax indignant at the use of the wet fly on dry-fly waters. Yet it has a special fascination. The indications which tell your dry-fly angler when to strike are clear and unmistakable, but those which bid a wet-fly man raise his rod-point and draw in the steel are frequently so subtle, so evanescent and impalpable to the senses, that, when the bending rod assures him that he has divined aright, he feels an ecstasy as though he had performed a miracle each time.