94 AN OPEN CREEL 



good hour before its appointed time a result, no doubt, 

 of the heavy rain. All is over, and so home. Let us 

 study Mr. Halford once more, and see if he tells us how 

 to make a fishery where there shall be no dabchicks, 

 and no sudden rain, and no rising water, and no float- 

 ing weeds, and no mist yes, and no August fishing. 



8. THE BURDEN OF THE DRY-FLY MAN 



Why is it that, with all one's desire for sweet 

 simplicity in matters of equipment, one goes out 

 encumbered so heavily to the fray ? Only the other 

 day, partly as a result of conversation and partly with 

 an eye to the approaching season, I collected and 

 spread on a table a few of the things that consider 

 themselves necessary to my dry-fly fishing I phrase it 

 in that way because they all get put into basket or bag, 

 in spite of the fact that I disapprove of a good many of 

 them ; it is another instance of the antipathy of theory 

 and practice. The first is a box with compartments, 

 ten little ones and one big one. Theoretically each 

 compartment holds one kind of fly to the number of a 

 dozen ; in practice, however, things are otherwise. 

 Taking a little compartment at random, I find in it 

 eleven red spinners, four red ants, four red quills, two 

 Brunton's fancies, one Wickham, one green insect, one 

 red tag, one witch, one silver sedge, one small red 

 sedge, one dark olive rather the worse for wear, and 

 (this is a surprise even to myself) one vast bluebottle 

 with a strip of white kid added as a tail. 



Those who are given to analysis might deduce a good 

 many things from this list. Mr. Sherlock Holmes 



