134 FLY FISHING FOR TROUT. 



ultimately they will prove more successful than 

 the old and familiar sunk patterns is a point 

 not yet cleared up. Many fishermen are con- 

 vinced that they will : Mr. Skues, a most 

 weighty opinion, thinks that they will not. 

 Only a long trial can decide, and possibly 

 the patterns of the future may be something 

 different from either. 



I do not want it to be supposed that these 

 reactions detract from the dry fly's pre- 

 eminence. They do nothing of the kind. In 

 all the long history of fly fishing there has been 

 no change so great as its introduction. Until 

 it came we fished much as our ancestors did 

 in the seventeenth century. Rods had been 

 improved, certainly, but were in principle 

 unaltered; the use of gut instead of hair had 

 added a convenience : the invention of the reel 

 modified the method of playing a fish; but the 

 dry fly was more than all put together. It 

 altered both the practice and the temperament 

 of the angler. It called different qualities into 

 request. It has a charm and an allurement 

 which the older sport did not possess. 



In what does its charm lie? Partly in the 

 fact that all the moves in the game are visible. 

 Just as a stalk is much more interesting when 

 you can see your stag and watch his slightest 

 movement, so with a fish. If you see him your 

 eyes never leave him : if not, you watch for his 

 rise. If it does not occur with its accustomed 

 regularity, you have put him down. If you can 



