Ill) AN ANGLER'S REMINISCENCES. 



English call dabbing, or skittered it over the surface of the water ; and with it 

 they caught many goodly bass, trout and pickerel. This primitive lure was really 

 a home-made hackle, and the way in which it was used was much nearer akin 

 to true fly-fishing than any sub-aqueous method employed since. Improvements 

 on the bob began when contrivances were deftly fashioned into close resem- 

 blances of natural objects, the outcome of which has developed into the marvelous 

 artificial fly of the present day. The moment metal attachments were devised 

 and applied for the purpose of intensifying the lure, or to imitate aquatic objects, 

 the evolution of the spoon began ; and the greater the progress we make in per- 

 fecting the spoon, the further away we depart from its origin and germ, the 

 primitive bob. There are composite plants which yield diametrically opposite 

 products. Just so the bob is the parent of both fly and spoon ; but we can never 

 interchange one for the other in the correct practice of arts so far asunder as 

 trolling and fly-fishing. Engineers might as well try to use a diving bell for a 

 floating battery. The ostrich, with his rudimentary wings might vie with the 

 condor of the Andes in flight. 



I am opposed, Mr. Angler, to combination implements and makeshifts of all 

 sorts. A mechanical jack-at-all-trades simply ruins the brotherhood and demoral- 

 izes the craft. Give me fly-fishing in its purity or give me worms. 



