108 FLY FISHING FOR TROUT. 



recommend it. The advantages of upstream 

 fishing are that you are unseen by the trout, 

 whom you approach from behind : you are more 

 likely to hook your fish, for when you strike you 

 pull the hook into him instead of out of his 

 mouth : you do not spoil unfished water in play- 

 ing a heavy fish : and you imitate the motion of 

 the natural insect. With these advantages you 

 can kill trout in the lowest and clearest water. 

 His case is not difficult to prove, but he does it 

 clearly and finally. He was not the discoverer 

 of upstream fishing any more than Darwin was 

 the discoverer of natural selection : but he was 

 the first for nearly two hundred years to take 

 the trouble to make the case and the first of 

 any age to do it completely. He probably 

 exaggerates the novelty of his creed, for it is 

 difficult to believe that in 1857 only one in a 

 hundred fished up, and the statement that most 

 books recommended downstream is only true 

 numerically, if at all, for as has been shewn the 

 best books did not. Still all credit be given to 

 Stewart, for he converted the world as Darwin 

 did. His case was so convincing that no one 

 has felt bold enough to dispute it. One or two 

 tried to cross swords with him, as Cholmondeley 

 Pennell did, but he found few to follow him, 

 and speaking generally from Stewart's time to 

 now the argument has been all one way and the 

 written word has been unanimous in favour of 

 upstream. Why the practice of mankind does 

 not universally follow so obvious a theory and 



