100 FLY FISHING FOE TROUT. 



a new field for observation and experiment. 



Upstream fishing is much older than is 

 generally imagined. It is first mentioned by 

 Venables, in the Experienced Angler, published 

 in 1662, a year after the third edition of the 

 Compleat Angler. The quality of the book is 

 proved by the fact that it ran rapidly through 

 five editions, and that Walton, who wrote a 

 preface, thought it worthy of forming the third 

 part of the Universal Angler, published in 

 1676, of which the first and second parts 

 were his and Cotton's books. Venables is so 

 important that he must be quoted : 



'And here I meet with two different opinions 

 and practices, some always cast their flie and 

 bait up the water, and so they say nothing 

 occurreth to the Fishes sight but the Line : 

 others fish down the River, and so suppose (the 

 Rod and Line being long) the quantity of water 

 takes away, or at least lesseneth the Fishes 

 sight; but the others affirm, that Rod and Line, 

 and perhaps your self, are seen also. In this 

 difference of opinions I shall only say, in small 

 Brooks you may angle upwards, or else in great 

 Rivers you must wade, as I have known some, 

 who thereby got Sciatica, and I would not wish 

 you to purchase pleasure at so dear a rate; 

 besides casting up the River you cannot keep 

 your Line out of the water, which we noted for 

 a fault before; and they that use this way 

 confess that if in casting your flie, the line fall 

 into the water before it, the flie were better 



