t strong rapids is amply repaid by the
increased scores secured; that the flies deftly thrown a foot or two above
the head of a feeding trout float more life-like down the current than
those drawn against it by the line, when they are apt to exhibit a
muscular power which in the live insect would be exaggerated and
unnatural.

On the other hand, the "down stream" fisherman is equally assertive as to
the value of his method. He feels the charm of gurgling waters around his
limbs, a down current that aids rather than retards or fatigues him in
each successive step of enjoyment in his pastime; as he casts his fifty or
more feet of line adown the stream, he is assured that he is beyond the
ken of the most keen-sighted and wary trout; that his artificial bugs,
under the tension of the current seaming it from right to left, reaches
every square inch of the "swim," as English rodsters term a likely water,
and coming naturally down stream, just the direction from whence a hungry
trout is awaiting it, are much more likely to be taken, than those thrown
against the current, with, doubtless, a foot or more of the leader
drooping and bagging before the nose of a trout, with a dead bug, soaked
and bedraggled, following slowly behind.

By wading "down stream" its advocates do not mean splashing and lifting
the feet above the surface, sending the water hither and yon on to the
banks, into the pools, with the soil of silt or mud or fine gravel from
the bottom, polluting the stream many yards ahead, and causing every fish
to scurry to the shelter of a hole in the bank or under a shelving rock.
They intend that the rodster shall enter the water quietly, and, after a
few preliminary casts to get the water gear in good working order to
proceed down stream by sliding rather than lifting his feet from the
bottom, noiselessly and cautiously approaching the most likely pools or
eddies behind the roots in mid stream, or still stretches close to the
banks, where the quiet reaches broaden down stream, where nine chances in
ten, on a good trout water, one or more fish will be seen lazily rising
and feeding.

Again, the down-stream angler contends that when a fish is fastened on a
hook, taking the lure in a current, that he is more likely to be well
hooked, hence more certain of capture when the line is tense, than when
rising to a floating bug at the end of a looping line and leader.
Certainly it is very difficult when casting against the curren