122 LETTERS TO YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



letters ; and, in the second place, long before you have gone 

 the length in your angling career to which I am now supposing 

 you to have progressed, you will have heard as much discus- 

 sion on this matter of flies as if you were living through the 

 fly plague which pestered ancient Egypt. Probably it matters 

 less than most of us suppose what fashion of fly We present 

 to the fish. Probably what matters more than any of us 

 sufficiently realise is the fashion in which we present it to 

 him. Remember this particularly, that it is of the greatest 

 importance to present it to him attractively, that is to say, 

 in likeness to the natural insect, on the first time of casting. 

 Remember that, whereas the number of the times of your 

 casting for him mount up arithmetically, the possibilities 

 of your catching him decrease geometrically. I mean, that 

 if you cast for the same fish five times, your chance of 

 catching him at the fifth attempt is not five times, but 

 twenty-five times less than it was at first. I write this, 

 be it noted, of the trout only ; a grayling, lying deeper in the 

 water, is far more likely to accept after many invitations than 

 is the trout. Each repetition of the throw deepens the sus- 

 picions of the shy trout and determines him in his refusal. 



Practically all that I intend to say to you about flies 

 I hope to condense in my next letter, but for the moment I 

 would say one word on the matter of gut. I am not going to 

 advise you as to its stoutness or tenuity. Anglers differ 

 in this matter in their opinions and practice. But this I 

 will say — be your gut stout or thin, see that it be sound ; see 

 that it be not old nor frayed nor rotten. One of the most 

 extraordinary instances of inconsistency and lack of reasonable 

 sense of proportion that human nature has to show us, as I 

 think, is afforded by the spectacle of a rich man who has 

 paid many pounds for a salmon fishing, has made long journeys 

 and has engaged boats and gillies and apparatus galore, and 

 goes forth and loses a salmon because he thinks that " this 

 old cast will do." I have seen it happen again and again, 

 both with trout and salmon fishers. I have been guilty, 

 in my degree — but certainly without the added aggravation of 

 possessing riches — of the like folly. Do not, therefore, spare 

 expense in your gut, for that is the worst possible economy ; 

 but I tell you where you may spare expense — in your landing 



