TROUT FLY-FISHING IN AMERICA 



It seems there have been many writers (for has not 

 La Branche said so) who have agreed with the Doctor and 

 some have even gone so far as to echo his views "word 

 for word." Yet all, each and every mother's son of these 

 "many latter-day writers" is wrong, because "either 

 through lack of experience or lack of confidence in their 

 own opinion ... if they ever had any on the point," 

 they believed in the truth of what a learned, experienced 

 and justly noted angler has said about "the proper func- 

 tion of a rod." 



Of course it is possible, judging from the way Mr. La 

 Branche writes, that even he and some of the "readers" he 

 speaks of may have been "misguided," not by what these 

 "latter-day writers" have written, but by the way their 

 writings have been interpreted. 



It is also quite possible that they have paid more at- 

 tention to fly-casting than fly-fishing, and their experience 

 has been limited to few, not many kinds of trout waters 

 and that the casting of a long line when fly-fishing was 

 their pleasure. 



Seventh — "Is it wrong to assume that the advantage gained 

 over the fish by using a rod which relieves the light gut leader of 

 strain may be safely abandoned in favor of the rod which enables 

 the angler to place his fly with more delicacy and precision, even 

 though he risk a smash in hooking, or after, because of its stiff- 

 ness?" 



To this question of Mr. La Branche's, I answer that 

 in my judgment it is decidedly wrong to assume any such 

 false hypothesis, for the following reasons : 



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