572 /MERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK. 



bestowing the attention on them they deserve ; but in perfect 

 qnietudO; and confidence in his ability to meet every contin- 

 gency that may occur, he patiently and leisurely tries all the 

 places that offer fair. What if he does get hung up in a 

 projecting branch of some old elm, that leans over the water ? 

 he does not swear and jerk his line away, and leave his flies 

 dangling there — it is a difficulty that will bring into play his 

 ingenuity, and perhaps his dexterity in climbing, and he sets 

 about recovering his flies with the same patient steadiness of 

 purpose that Caesar did in building his bridge, or that 

 possessed Bonaparte in crossing the Alps, and feels as much 

 satisfaction as either of those great generals, in accomplish- 

 ing his ends. 



If he takes " an extraordinary risk," as underwriters call it, 

 in casting under boughs that hang within a few feet of the 

 water, on the opposite side of some unwadeable rift or pool, 

 and his stretcher should fasten itself in a tough twig, or his 

 dropper grasp the stem of an obstinate leaf, he does not give 

 it up in despair, or, consoling himself with the idea that he 

 has plenty of flies and leaders in his book, pull away and 

 leave his pet spinner and some favorite hackle to hang there 

 as a memento of his temerity in casting so near the bushes. 

 Far from it; he draws sufficient line off his reel and tnrough 

 the rings to give slack enough to lay his rod down, marking 

 well where his flies have caught, and finds some place above 

 or below where he can cross; then by twisting with a forked 

 stick, or drawing in the limb with a hooked one, he releases 

 his leader, and throws it clear off into the water, that he may 

 regain it when he returns to his rod, and reels in his line ; or 

 he cuts it off and lay; it carefully in his fly-book, and then 

 recrosses the river. A fig for the clearing-ring and rod-scythe 

 and all such cockney contrivances, he never cumbers his 

 pockets with them. Suppose he does break his rod — he sits 



