304 FISHING WITH THE FLY. 



fly, and till in pursuing your amusement in the calm 

 and balmy evening, you are serenaded by the songs of 

 the cheerful thrush and melodious nightingale, per- 

 forming the office of paternal love, in thickets orna- 

 mented with the rose and woodbine." 



While it is not all of fishing to fish, it does not con- 

 sist entirely of preparation, and it must have something 

 substantial as a basis for the day dream or fireside 

 musing. You must catch some fish, as capital stock, 

 to talk about. I never knew an angler that was satis- 

 fied to do all the listening. 



In my native State the law makes it legally possible 

 to wet a hook for speckled trout, for the first time each 

 year on April first, and this day has come to be called 

 " Opening Day," and is spoken of in such glowing 

 language that one might think it the opening of some 

 vast commercial enterprise instead of the opening of 

 the fishing season. As the result of an angler's hopes 

 and preparations, as I have tried, imperfectly, to sketch 

 them, I will quote from my fishing diary what is there 

 set down as one consummation: 



" April 1st, 1878. Opening day. Fished Halfway 

 brook from Morgan brook to, and through the woods ; 

 then fished Ogden brook from Van Husen's road to 

 Gleason's. Banks more than full of roily snow water ; 

 weather decidedly cold ; strong wind from the North- 

 west ; cloudy sky. Caught one small trout that I 

 returned to his native element to grow; discovered 

 from my single specimen of the Salvelinus fontinalis 



