CLEAR WATERS 



above or on the waters beneath, nor made of materials 

 hitherto famiHar to fly dressers, but perhaps for that 

 very reason irresistible to the jaded appetites of the most 

 fastidious trout. So at least say the testimonials with 

 undoubtedly bona-fide signatures. Our young friend, 

 though he is not always young, is inclined to begin at 

 the wrong end. If he would cease to worry himself 

 and wait tiU he gets down to the district of his choice, 

 and there secure from the more or less local tackle- 

 maker the patterns which the local expert swears by, 

 they will be at least quite good enough for him. I 

 ought, I suppose, to blush in confessing the fact that 

 they have always been quite good enough for me. 

 It is unenterprising, no doubt, but I admit to having 

 always been something of a slave to local prejudices 

 and rather a good customer to the man on the spot, 

 or at any rate to the man who provides those on the 

 spot with such patterns as they demand of him. This, 

 too, involves the confession that I have tied no flies 

 myself since almost boyhood. Life has always seemed 

 too short. For those dozen or more years, when early 

 habits are confirmed, it was impossible, and both the 

 habits and the impulse proved afterwards irrecover- 

 able. I have consoled myself with the plausible and 

 common excuse that my samples would probably be 

 less effective than those of the professional fly-tier. 

 Still I admit that this has never quite satisfied me even 

 when I think of so many really first-class wet-fly fisher- 

 men who have never made a fly in their lives. 



As to that redundancy of equipment with which 

 the embryo angler is apt to burden both his fly-book 

 and his mind, it is a form in miniature of the lavishness 

 366 



