TROUT FLY-FISHING IN AMERICA 



The good and, therefore, successful wet-fly anglers do 

 not use a "sodden" or "sunken" fly in the sense the dry- 

 fly writer would have his readers believe. 



A "sodden" fly is one that has been soaked through and 

 through in water, it is saturated; and such are the flies 

 the wet-fly angler is said to use by the dry-fly men, and 

 they are also said to be made "sodden" before they are 

 used. 



This is a deliberate misstatement of facts because they 

 are not true ; real wet-fly anglers never soak their flies be- 

 fore using. 



A wet-fly in the hands of a good wet-fly man is never a 

 "sodden" fly, and cannot become so even with constant use 

 because it cannot be made saturated, owing to the way it 

 is handled. 



A "sunken" fly is one that must be deep down in the 

 water, such as a "sunken" rock, a "sunken" battery, a 

 "sunken" body or a "sunken" boat, but the wet-fly that is 

 fished under the surface of the water from one to twenty 

 inches should not be by any stretch of the imagination 

 called "sunken," especially as it is controlled and manipu- 

 lated by the angler. 



The wet-fly can only become a "sunken" fly after it 

 has been made "sodden" and all control over it has been 

 lost by the angler, due to the severing of the leader or line. 



The wet-fly is fished by the great majority of wet-fly 

 anglers in this country, mostly upon or nearly upon the 

 surface of the water, just iinder the surface and sometimes 

 as deep as twenty inches, but never so far below the sur- 



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