FISHING TACKLE AND HOW TO MAKE IT. 475 



torn from the mid-rib of a crow's feather. (If I am making 

 Trout sizes I get this from the red-winged blackbird.) The 

 wings are double and water-proofed crow feather. 



This water-proofing process for Bass and the larger Trout 

 I conceive to be a great improvement. The feather is natu- 

 rally held together by means of the clinging, hooked processes, 

 to be found on the two sides of each fiber. These, however, 

 are very feeble, as compared with the strength and ferocity 

 of the fish, and ordinarily the first fish tears the wings into 

 a straggling, shapeless mass. The semblance of a wing is 

 hopelessly gone. Moreover, the feather gets water-logged 

 and "soggy" and generally demoralized, so that the fastidious 

 fisherman feels like putting on a fresh fly — especially if the 

 quarry are not rising very freely. 



My method of getting over this difficulty — to a very satis- 

 factory degree, at all events — is to water-proof the feather 

 precisely in the same way that water-proof sheeting is made. 

 A water-proof preparation impregnates two surfaces of 

 feather, and these are placed one on the other, and submit- 

 ted to pressure. This forms one wing. The same process 

 is of course necessary for the other, and thus four slips of 

 feathers are used instead of two only, and they are rendered 

 not less pliable, but tougher, and not likely to separate into 

 fibers of independent directions at the touch of the fish. 

 Moreover, the water cannot wet them through, any more 

 than it can a rubber coat. 



D. — Mouse-Fly.- — Trout and bass will take mice, if the fish 

 be large and the mice small. Some makers produce a pretty 

 close imitation of the quadruped himself; but in the fly before 

 the reader its color only can be said to be counterfeited. 

 The body of this fly is of muskrat-fur, the end of body tipped 

 red silk and tinsel. The wings are from the gray goose, or 

 brant, and should be lead-colored dun in hue. 



E. — White Moth, for Trout. — Body quill stripped from 



