106 TROUT FISHING 



on which I have touched, one cannot help coming 

 to a conclusion that one ought to be able to simplify 

 one's method without any great loss to one's take 

 of fish. If different men are able to go contentedly 

 on with single patterns so diverse in character as 

 Wickham, red tag, coachman, and silver-ribbed 

 black hackle, the implication is that, take them by 

 and large, trout are not a fastidious race. And so 

 the ordinary angler need not, unless he chooses, 

 embarrass himself with a confusing mass of patterns 

 which many of them have but small points of differ- 

 ence. Which is as much as to say that the brief 

 list advocated by some writers is sound policy after 

 all. 



Looking at one's own customary procedure one 

 is on the whole strengthened in this belief. The 

 flies which I use most are as follows : 1, olive ; 

 2, red quill ; 3, Wickham ; 4, blue upright ; 5, hackle 

 red quill ; 6, black hackle ; 7, half stone ; 8, orange 

 quill; 9, blue-winged olive; 10, March brown; 

 11, orange partridge; 12, Greenwell; 13, hare's 

 ear; 14, cochybonddu ; 15, blue dun; 16, February 

 red or early brown. Of course there are other flies 

 which are on my cast occasionally, and I would 

 not venture to say that at some future date the list 

 given would not have to be altered or modified. 

 But so far as my present practice is concerned these 

 sixteen patterns are the flies on which I chiefly 



