THE POETRY OF FLY FISHING. 



BY 



F. E. POND. 



It has been said that the angler, like the poet, is 

 born, not made. This is a self-evident fact. Few men 

 have risen to the dignity of anglers who did not in 

 early youth feel the unconquerable impulse to go a- 

 fishing. There are, of course, noteworthy exceptions, 

 but the rule holds good. It might be added, too, that 

 the genuine angler is almost invariably a poet, although 

 he may not be a jingler of rhymes — a ballad-monger. 

 Though, perhaps, lacking the art of vesification, his 

 whole life is in itself a well-rounded poem, and he 

 never misses the opportunity to "cast his lines in 

 pleasant places." 



This is particularly true of the artistic fly-fisher, for 

 with him each line is cast with the poetry of motion. 

 Ned Locus, the inimitable character of J. Cypress* 

 "Fire Island Ana," is made to aver that he "once 

 threw his fly so far, so delicately, and suspendedly, that 

 it took life and wings, and would have flown away, but 

 that a four-pound trout, seeing it start, jumped a foot 

 from the water and seized it, thus changing the course 

 of the insect's travel from the upper atmosphere to the 



