CHAPTER II 

 ARTIFICIAL PLY-FISHING 



i. The supremacy of fly -fishing over other 

 kinds, as an art and a sport. 



Of all the methods of capturing trout, 

 fly-fishing is the cleanest and most sports- 

 manlike. There is no messing with slippery 

 baits or wriggling worms, no impaling of 

 natural insects on a hook, from which they 

 flop off on the slightest pretext ; but in- 

 stead the fish are lured with a fly of steel 

 and feather, dressed in imitation of one or 

 other of the multitudinous creatures which 

 flutter about the water during the warm 

 summer weather. Once become enamoured 

 of the art, and you are a fly-fisher for life. 

 Armed with a light rod, and a few casts 

 and flies, you are free to wander by your 

 favourite stream, and cast your feathered 

 lures like thistledown upon the surface, where 

 the ever-widening rings mark the where- 

 abouts of rising trout. Whether you visit 



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