The Trout Flies For The Season
I will now give a description of those flies which will be found most
killing, as they are imitations of the natural ones that appear in each
month, so that the fly-fisher may practice with them to very great
advantage.
The numbers of each correspond with the engravings in the plates of the
catalogue of flies.
THE TROUT is a game and sportive fish, and affords much amusement to the
/>
fly-fishers, as well as being generally esteemed the best of our
fresh-water fishes for the table. The spawning time of the trout is much
the same as that of the salmon, about October and November, and their
haunts very similar; they fix upon some gravelly bottom to deposit their
spawn, in either river or lake, and are never good when big with roe.
After they have spawned they become lean and wasted, and their beautiful
spots disappear; in this state they retire to the deep and still parts
of the river during the winter months. As soon as the weather becomes
open in February, they begin to leave the deeps and approach the rapid
streams, where they soon obtain vigour for the summer sport. They
delight in sandy and rocky beds and pools, into which sharp and swift
streams run, and under shady banks, behind large stones and in eddies;
in streams where there are sedges and weeds in the spring of the year.
In the summer months they get strange, and haunt the deepest parts of
swift running streams; they are found also at the upper ends of
mill-pools and weirs, under bridges, and in the return of streams where
the water boils in deep places. At the decline of the year they resort
to the tails of streams and deep water.
They are in season from February till the end of September.
These few suggestions may benefit the young angler by giving him an idea
of knowing where to cast his flies for them.