CHAPTER XIV 

 THE "EXPERT" FLY FISHERMAN 



It is not an uncommon thing as each fishing season 

 comes around to see in the various sporting papers that 

 such and such a fly fisherman is described as an expert 

 angler. 



In some cases the application of the term expert is 

 undoubtedly properly applied, but in the large majority 

 of cases, I am sorry to say, it is used with little or no judg- 

 ment, and frequently with absolutely no knowledge of 

 what the term expert fly fisherman really means. 



So much has been said upon this subject, and the term 

 expert has been so persistently misapplied, that to-day the 

 large majority of beginners and not a few semi-expe- 

 rienced anglers have come to believe that an angler who 

 is a good caster must naturally be an expert fly fisherman. 



Nothing, as a matter of fact, could be farther from the 

 truth, because a good, or even an expert, caster, solely as 

 such, is not and never can be an expert fly fisherman. 



It is not alone by casting that a man may become an 

 expert fly fisherman, nor can the angler who only plays 

 his fly properly or the one who excels merely at playing 

 the fish be so described. The true expert with the arti- 



199 



