TROUT FLY-FISHING. 313 



here jotted down, are rather the result of my own experience, 

 as I have learned them on the stream and from members of 

 our little club the " Houseless Anglers." 



Much, perhaps most, of the theoretical knowledge of flies 

 acquired by the reading angler, when he begins, is obtained 

 from the writings of our brethren of the " Fast-anchored 

 Isle." Every fly-fisher can read Chitty, Eonalds, Rene, 

 " Ephemera," and others, with interest and profit. Though 

 I do not pretend to condemn or think lightly of their pre- 

 cepts, drawn from long experience of bright waters and its 

 inmates, yet if followed without modification and proper 

 allowance for climate, season, water, and insect life here as 

 contrasted with England, the beginner is apt to be led into 

 many errors, corrected only by long summers of experience. 

 So he will come at last to the conclusion, that of the many 

 flies described and illustrated in English books, or exhibited 

 on the fly-makers' pattern-cards, a very limited assortment is 

 really necessary, and many totally useless, in making up his 

 book. He will also find, after the lapse of some years, that of 

 the great variety with which he at first stored his book, he 

 has gradually got rid of at least three-fourths of them, as he 

 has of the theory of strict imitation, and the routine system, 

 (that is, an exact imitation of the natural fly, and particular 

 flies for each month), and settles down to the use of a half 

 dozen or so of hackles and a few winged flies ; and with such 

 assortment, considers his book stocked beyond any contin- 

 gency. 



An extensive knowledge of flies and their names can hardly 

 be of much practical advantage. Many a rustic adept is 

 ignorant of a book ever having been written on fly-fishing, 

 and knows the few flies he uses only by his own limited 

 vocabulary. One of the most accomplished fly-fishers I ever 

 met with has told me that his first essay was with the scalp 



