While each season provides its own challenges, they equally offer opportunities to try out new techniques. Each chapter provides a detailed method of fishing that I have found to be highly effective at that time of the year, but there have been days when I have tried all the methods as the day's conditions varied. Don't just cast and hope! There are always tell-tale signs about what is going on beneath the surface. You just have to realise what those signs are and how to react to them.

Fall will find another change in the trout's feeding habits. They seem to know that the cooler days presage the oncoming winter and that they need to pack on as much weight as possible in anticipation of hard times ahead. This is the time when they become carnivorous (as they are eating fish does that make them piscivorous?) and will actively hunt for fry. Again we find ourselves back at that "ten foot zone", but with different fishing techniques. This time we are pulling a fry type pattern at speed - give them something to chase! This is known as lure fishing, not to be confused with the wooden, plastic and metal lures of other fishing methods. These flies are large, often glittery and sometimes made using tubes and traces. More information is in the Flies Section. Takes will be hard and the fights monumental from fish who have had a whole summer to get fit.

Spring brings the opportunity to re-acquaint yourself with the water after the hardships of winter and the fish will be feeding on whatever they can find to make up for the privations they have endured. That "ten foot zone" will be the first port of call when the weather begins to warm and the vegetation starts to re-grow. If the fish cannot be found in that area on the upwind shore - i.e. the shore that the wind is blowing from, then the next place to try will be the downwind shore at the same depth. I have never been able to work out why the fish seem to prefer the upwind shore at times and the downwind shore at other times without apparent reason.