280 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



fly to the utmost length of your rod and line, up or down 

 the river, as the gale serves. 



It only remains, touching your line, to enquire whether 

 your two hairs next to the hook are better twisted or open ? 

 And for that I should declare that I think the open way 

 the better, because it makes less show in the water, but 

 that I have found an inconvenience, or two, or three, that 

 have made me almost weary of that way ; of which, one 

 is, that, without dispute, they are not so strong open as 

 twisted ; another, that they are not easily to be fastened 

 of so exact an equal length in the arming that the one 

 will not cause the other to bag, by which means a man 

 has but one hair upon the matter to trust to ; and the 

 last is that these loose flying hairs are not only more apt 

 to catch upon every twig or bent they meet with, but 

 moreover, the hook, in falling upon the water, will, very 

 often, rebound and fly back betwixt the hairs, and there 

 stick (which, in a rough water especially, is not presently 

 to be discerned by the angler), so as the point of the hook 

 shall stand reversed ; by which means your fly swims 

 backward, makes a much greater circle in the water, and 

 till taken home to you and set right, will never raise any 

 fish, or, if it should, I am sure, but by a very extraordinary 

 chance, can hit none.* 



Having done with both these ways of fishing at the top, 

 the length of your rod, and line and all, I am next to teach 

 you how to make a fly ; and afterwards of what dubbing 

 you are to make the several flies I shall hereafter name 

 to you. 



In malting a fly then, which is not a hackle or palmer- 

 fly (for of those, and their several kinds, we shall have 

 occasion to speak every month in the year) you are first 

 to hold your hook fast betwixt the fore-finger and thumb 

 of your left-hand, with the back of the shank upwards, and 



* This cannot happen with the present gut casting-lines, the 

 only sort that should be used for fly-fisliing. E. 



