Getting Out the Fly Books 



dry, as lightly as he is ahle, above the 

 point marked, and allows it to float with- 

 out tug- or strain jauntily down stream 

 until it passes over the fish. If it is not 

 taken, it is dried by a few casts in the air, 

 and again put over the fish. If it is taken, 

 there can be little doubt, not only from 

 theory, but from comparative experiments, 

 that it is taken for the natural fly of which 

 it is the avowed counterfeit. This is, I 

 think, fly-fishing in the strict sense of the 

 term. In such streams, with fish made 

 wary by long experience, to use coarse 

 flies, to cast carelessly, or even to fish down 

 stream, would probably put every neigh- 

 boring fish off its feed, or drive it to the 

 shelter of its hold. In our wilder waters, 

 such nicety is not yet necessary, and may 

 even be less successful than less exacting 

 methods. But where it is applicable, the 

 writer can testify that it adds to the other 

 pleasures of fly-fishing the charm that al- 

 ways attends delicacy of manipulation and 

 certainty of aim. 



Note the differences between this kind 

 of fly-fishing and the "feather-baiting." 

 Take a salmon-fly, for instance. It is a 

 combination in a conventional shape of 

 colors the result of experience or exper- 

 iment which resembles nothing that 



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