106 FLY FISHING FOR TROUT. 



Scotcher, neutral, and two, Bowlker, most 

 famous of all, whose sales probably exceeded 

 the rest put together, and Shirley who copied 

 him, in favour of up. 



Coming to the nineteenth century, Sir 

 Humphry Davy* put his mayfly a foot above a 

 rising four pounder, and advises the novice to 

 throw half a yard above another monster. This 

 also might be either up or across, but we can 

 reckon Sir Humphry an upstream man. Penn, 

 whose amusing Maxims (1833) are taken from 

 the Common Place Book of the Houghton Fish- 

 ing Club, tells you that you will rise more fish 

 by fishing down but hook more by fishing up, 

 and that you will not disturb unfished water by 

 killing them. Stoddart apparently began 

 angling life by fishing down, but tells you not 

 to lead your hooks [draw your flies], a necessary 

 feature in downstream fishing, and as he is one 

 of the first writers to mention the dry fly he 

 must have fished up, though he does not say so. 

 Ronalds in that glorious book the Fly fisher's 

 Entomology (1836) advises throwing across and 

 down. Younger (1840), one of the best fisher- 

 men that ever lived, tells you to throw aslant 

 upwards or straight across rather than down- 

 wards, and to allow the fly to float down the 

 current of its own accord. One writer, by the 

 way, Blakey, quite a competent authority, in 

 his Hints on Angling (1846) inveighs against 



*Salmonia was published in 1828, but the chapter in ques- 

 tion is headed 'May 1810.' 



