102 TROUT FISHING 



I would learn to handle fly-dressing materials before 

 I learnt the management of rod and line. I do not 

 think that a man enjoys his fishing any the less 

 for not tying his own flies, nor do I think that he 

 would save much money by tying them (for cabinets, 

 materials, tools, silks, and the other paraphernalia 

 are attractive enough to induce lavish outlay), but 

 I do think that he must be less efficient in the art 

 of catching fish if he cannot himself construct the 

 lures with which he pursues them. " But think," 

 some one may say, " how many fine fishermen there 

 are who have this disability." It is true, but it is 

 no less true that if they were fly-tyers they would be 

 better fishermen still. And I fancy there are very 

 few of them who would not admit it. 



Occasionally the question, a curiously interesting 

 albeit not a very profitable one, has been raised 

 as to what trout-fly individual anglers would select 

 if they were confined to the use of a single pattern 

 for a whole season. The problem is as difficult 

 as the other test of irresolution which seeks to pin 

 a man down to the choice of a single book for a 

 sojourn on a desert island. To the individual who 

 finds neither the hundred best patterns nor the 

 hundred best books enough for his normal require- 

 ments, such a making-up of the mind would be a 

 fearful proceeding. But of course for academic 

 purposes and with the comfortable certainty that 



