NOT ALL OF FISHING TO FISH. 



BY 

 A. NELSON CHENEY. 



" We cast our flies on many waters, where memories and fan- 

 cies and facts rise, and we take them and show them to each 

 other, and, small or large, we are content with our catch." — W. 

 C. Prime. 



The commonly accepted definition of fly-fishing is 

 the casting — with a light, strong, elastic, pliant rod — 

 of two, three or four artificial flies, on a delicate leader 

 attached to a fine tapered silk line over the surface of 

 waters inhabited by the lordly, silver-coated salmon ; 

 that aristocratic beauty, the speckled trout, or the 

 more sombre-colored but gamy black bass. 



This, in truth, is called the acme of fishing, the 

 highest degree attainable in the school of the angler. 

 But of what a small portion, comparatively, of the 

 pleasure of angling does the mere casting of the fly, 

 however artistic, and the creeling of the fish, however 

 large, consist. 



If it were all of fishing to fish ; if fish were only to 

 be obtained in pools, in a desert waste that never re- 

 flected leaf or twig ; from Avail ed-in reservoirs, where 

 fish are fattened like a bullock for the shambles ; from 



