34 8 The Trouts of America 



people do, what do you suppose a trout will take 

 it for? Why, just what it is a bunch of hair, 

 no more, no less. You drag it along, and the 

 hairs close on the shaft of the hook; it is just a 

 dead mass, not resembling a fly, or a caterpillar, 

 or anything else. But suppose, instead of this, 

 you work your wrist very gently up and down, so 

 as to let the electric hairs of the hackle expand 

 and close with the stream ; what then ? Why the 

 thing looks alive, looks like a drowning insect, 

 and the trout goes for it directly. It is the same 

 with winged flies exactly. There is no use hav- 

 ing wings to a fly if you simply drag it through 

 the water in one direction." 



" Uncle Thad," as he was familiarly and lov- 

 ingly called by his contemporary stream anglers, 

 was evidently neither a " formalist " or " colorist " 

 in the matter of flies, but put his faith in the 

 proper manipulation of the feathers on the water, 

 as all good and worthy anglers do in the present 

 era, a halcyon one for " the art contemplative," 

 and its devotees, for skill and experience are now 

 the primal factors of a full creel. 



We sometimes hear the phrase " cocking a fly." 

 It is a term used in England to express a cast 

 that puts the artificial fly in a natural position, 



