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Once in a long while, often enough to keep his interest keen, a May-fly or a fat worm would drop close past his nose and lie kicking on top of the water. Up would sail a big trout, open-jawed to engulf the morsel.
When you mark men drinking who wear their hats, and those hats are seen gradually beginning to hang on the backs of their heads, as from pegs, in the fashion of a fez, the bald projection of forehead looks jolly and frank: distrust that sign: the may-fly of the soul is then about to be gobbled up by the chub of the passions. A hat worn fez-fashion is a dangerous hat.
There are as many fish to be taken, perhaps, in the spring fishing; but in this deep river they are seldom in good season till the May-fly has been on, and a fortnight hence they will be still better than even now.
Thinking this advice sound, we hastily put on the first may-fly of the season; and no sooner have we made our cast than, as Rudyard Kipling once said to the writer, there is a boil in the water "like the launch of a young yacht," a tremendous swirl, and we are fast into a famous trout.
Albans, and between that and Watford, I have sometimes, even as early as April, caught fish in good condition; but the true season for the Colne is the season of the May-fly. The same may be said of most of the large English rivers containing large trouts, and abounding in May-fly such as the Test and the Kennett, the one running by Stockbridge, the other by Hungerford.
All day long he's p'raps bin a-flashin' his fins an' a-twiddlin' his tail round an' round the may-fly or the brandlin' worrum, though he knows all about the hook; but all at wonst comes the time o' the bitin', and that's the time o' the dukkeripen, when every fish in the brook, whether he's hungry or not, begins to bite, an' then up comes old red-spots, an' grabs at the bait because he must grab, an' swallows it because he must swallow it; an' there's a hend of old red-spots jist as sure as if he didn't know there wur a hook in the bait."
When the grub of the May-fly has completed his two years of probation, he comes out from his subterranean and subaqueous den, and rises to the surface of the stream. By means of his flapping and then somewhat enlarged gills, he half leaps and half flies to the nearest rush or sedge he can perceive, and clings fast to it by means of his legs.
In many cases it is advisable to attempt the introduction of some flies which are not present. There are several cases in which the May-fly has been successfully introduced, and also the Grannom. Small Ephemeridæ seem to me preferable to any other flies.
A busy month this had been for the Major. Fishing every day, and pretty near all day, determined, as he said, to make the most of it, for fear it should be his last year. There was a beaten path worn through the growing grass all down the side of the stream by his sole exertions; and now the May-fly was coming, and there would be no more fishing in another week, so he worked harder than ever. Mrs.
John Pike perceived that to offer such a thing to Crocker's trout would probably consign him even if his great stamina should over-get the horror to an uneatable death, through just and natural indignation. On the other hand, while the May-fly lasted, a trout so cultured, so highly refined, so full of light and sweetness, would never demean himself to low bait, or any coarse son of a maggot.
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