Keep an eye out for rising fish, and observe closely the natural insects, if any, about and on the water. Cover all the water thoroughly, floating your fly not once but several times over the best places. If the water is equally good from bank to bank, let each cast be not more than two feet to the right of the preceding one, beginning under your own bank (generally the left facing upstream) and working across the stream. Then move up slowly and proceed to cover the unfished water above in a similar manner. Pools should be fished in the same way--covered thoroughly from foot to head. The matter of the most likely places to look for trout has been discussed in a foregoing chapter and need not be reconsidered here. The suggestions to follow on casting to a rising fish will also be found to have a general application in many ways to fishing the water.
Casting purely to the rise is the orthodox way of dry fly fishing on the English chalk streams; that this manner of fishing the floater is of necessity subordinated to fishing all the water on American streams has been mentioned heretofore. Save in extremely favorable localities where the conditions closely approximate those of the British streams, stalking the fish is practically love's labor lost. However, large, quiet pools may be fished in this way if the angler selects the most propitious time for rising trout--in the warm season a little before sundown and for some time thereafter. Extensive, quiet reaches where the fishing is open may also at times be resorted to with the idea of casting to the rise, and some fair sport obtained.
Regarding the sporting merits of the two methods, I personally am sure that if conditions allowed I would never cast a fly except to a rising trout. The visible rise of a trout always appears in the nature of a challenge, and my inability to get away from a place where I positively know a good trout is located has frequently resulted in my return with a pretty light creel. When casting over a pool, no matter how good, while fishing all the water, lack of success eventually breeds a doubt as to the presence of a trout therein; anglers going before may have temporarily fished it out or for some other reason, the pool may be barren at the time.