FLY FISHING FOR TROUT AND GRAYLING. 27? 



I may add to encourage the pursuit of fish under difficul- 

 ties that I do not remember to have lost more than one fish 

 off the hook in all my battles up and down that dangerous 

 reach. The rises were bold and sure, because the artificial fly 

 was a stranger there in fact I do not believe that anyone but 

 myself had ever risked his tackle in such a spot. With an ordi- 

 nary single-handed rod, however, success would have been im- 

 possible; I could neither have worked my flies nor controlled 

 my fish. I used in those days a fourteen-foot double-handed 

 rod of Eaton's, extra stiff and lengthened in defiance of all 

 symmetry to suit a fad of my own. I fancied that the original 

 hollow butt felt light and weak, and got the maker to shape me 

 one nearly a foot longer and powerful enough to bear boring 

 for a spare top. That rod, by the bye, is still forthcoming after 

 forty-five years' hard work in many waters, and I wish its master 

 were in equally good condition. 



Thus far I seem to have proceeded without a due arrangement 

 of my subject. I was tempted by my title to plunge as it were 

 in medias res, and to show the purpose and conditions of fine 

 and far-off casting. But as fly fishing was my theme I might 

 as well, perhaps, have begun with the fly, the lure to which above 

 all others the true angler loves to resort. The mimic insect is 

 in every way interesting. The variety of materials now employed 

 in its structure exceeds in these days even the extensive range 

 suggested by Gay in his elegant description. Bodies of quill or 

 gutta-percha were doubtless unknown to him, and the endless 

 shades of pig's down and mohair. The many forms of gold and 

 silver twist or tinsel which seem to have so great an attraction 

 for the Salmonidcz belong to a later date than his. And though 

 he presses ' each gay bird ' into his service, I doubt whether he 

 would have known how to utilise the kingfisher's blue, the crest 

 and hackles of the golden pheasant, or the killing plumage of 

 the wood duck. 



The Fisheries Exhibition brought out a wonderful dis- 

 play of artificial flies, English, Scotch, and Irish I crave 

 pardon of the judges for not having placed the Scotch flies first 



