PRESENT-DAY ARTIFICIALS ARE INEFFECTIVE 181 



they have no use for the opinions of experts or 

 of anybody, but they go right to the tackle dealer, 

 ask for anything that will get fish in the easiest 

 way possible, and the dealer gives them the best 

 he has at hand. If the complacent, self-satisfied 

 man fails, he does not blame anybody, but says: 

 "What a darn fool I am to go fishing, anyway." 

 In the evolution of this important section of the 

 angler's craft I can now speak with far greater 

 confidence than I could five years ago when Trout 

 Stream Insects was published. The matter has 

 ceased to be experimental or visionary, to judge 

 not only from hundreds of testimonials received 

 from experts and amateurs who express pleasure 

 at the success of my new theories. We see the plug 

 dying a slow death, which rather dubiously I pre- 

 dicted would soon happen, and we now see the chief 

 manufacturers of them making rods — so far, as a 

 side issue. The cry now is bugs; bugs of all possi- 

 ble shapes and materials that do wonders: Light- 

 ning-bugs, thunder-bugs, devil-bugs, nature bugs, 

 illuminated bugs and minnows for night work; even 

 pieces of hogskin make claim to beat the plug and 

 everything else. Suppose they do; it's all the same; 

 they will soon have their day and fall down from 

 anglers' esteem in the evolution for better things. 



