Introductory 5 



it is worth. That, at times, when fishing 

 a Scottish river, he would be wise, like 

 " old Uncle Ned," to " cast down the shovel 

 and the hoe, and take up the fiddle and 

 the bow;" in fact, to use his dry fly, is 

 beyond all question, and the perfect fly- 

 fisherman, unquestionably, is he who is 

 quite at home with both methods, and has 

 the judgment to know when to apply each 

 to advantage. 



At present, I hold that the expert wet- 

 fly fisherman is still master of the situation 

 on the large (very large) majority of Scottish 

 and north of England rivers, and a very 

 considerable change will have to take place 

 ere he is knocked off his stool, by the rising 

 generation of dry-fly fishermen. 



In the first place, trout are numerous 

 rather than large in most of our Scottish 

 rivers, and it does not pay to waste the 

 brief but valuable time of the " rise " over 

 any single trout. When our streams are 

 free from pollution and poaching, and "free 

 fishing " has been supplanted by a wiser 

 system ; when new varieties of trout have 

 been introduced, and with them the culture 

 of natural food for their support (without 

 which the larger-sized trout never could be 

 expected to thrive and multiply), then, and 



