just a break from trout fly fishing reel reviews...A reading from the book
FLY FISHING
By Sir Edward Grey, 1899
"...And now let the season be somewhere about
the middle of May, and let there be a holiday,
and the angler be at the Test or the Itchen,
and let us consider a day's fishing, which shall
be typical of many days in this month. The
wind shall be south-west, a perceptible breeze,
but with no squalls or rough manners ; and
there shall be light clouds moving before it,
between which gleams of sunshine fall upon the
young leaves and woods — for there are many fine
woods by the sides of water meadows. Granted
these first two conditions, it will follow that
the day is warm, with a temperature reaching
62° in the shade, the mean temperature for
midsummer, but a very suitable maximum for
a day in May.
It is almost certain that there
will be a rise of trout at some time during the day,
and it is all important to know at what
hour it will begin.
The chances in my experience are something as follows : It is not certain
that there will be no rise before ten o'clock,
but it is very improbable that there will be any.
After ten o'clock the rise may begin at any time.
The most likely time for it is between eleven
and twelve, but there need be no disappoint-
ment if it does not begin till twelve o'clock.
On a day such as this I do, however, become
anxious if at one o'clock there is still no rise.
Taking then these chances into consideration,
desiring earnestly not to miss a minute of the
rise, and leaving a fair margin for uncertainties,
the angler will probably be at the water by 9.30.
If this forecast of the time of the rise proves
correct, and there is at first neither fly nor fish
to be seen, the angler has at any rate the satis-
faction of feeling that the day is all before him,
and that he has so far missed nothing. If he
is very impatient to have an outlet at once for
his energy, he may put on a medium-sized hackle
fly and use it wet in the rough water of hatch-
holes, but he can do no good — and perhaps he
may do some harm — by attempting to fish the river at large. Even in the hatch-holes he will
probably prick more fish than he hooks, and if
one or two are landed they will cither be small
trout, or large ones in inferior condition. The
fact is, that attempts to anticipate success in a
chalk stream before the proper rise begins are
unsatisfactory ; however resolutely the angler
may have made up his mind to expect nothing
from these attempts, yet if he labours at them,
some sense of disappointment will insensibly steal
over him, and take just a little off the edge of his
keenness. In my opinion, it is better to keep
this unimpaired till the rise begins. It is not
hard to wait for an hour or two on such a day ;
one need only watch and listen to the life about
the river." |
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