FLY FISHING. 43 



its usual size when in the water. The best thing to clean gut 

 with is a piece of India rubber, or a silk handkerchief. It should 

 also be straightened before it is fished with, by drawing it through 

 a piece of India rubber, or even tightly a few times through your 

 hands. The turns should also be taken out of the line, by soaking 

 it a minute or two in the water, and then straining it gently by 

 hand, as until this is done no sport whatever can be expected. I 

 recollect once being somewhat amused at a person who was fishing 

 in my company, expressing his surprise that I should have taken 

 several fish when he had not even obtained a rise ; my surprise 

 was how he could possibly have expected one, for his gut bottom, 

 composed of the stoutest salmon gut, was full of turns, stiff as a 

 cork screw, and so furred as I never saw gut before or since, 

 whilst the waters we fished in were unusually low, and almost as 

 clear as chrystal ; and yet less than two minutes time would have 

 done more towards straightening his tackle than an hour's fishing 

 at that time accomplished. The best way to carry your gut bot- 

 tom to the water side is to wind it round your hat, when, the 

 turns being so large, it is fit for use the moment it is unwound. 



To attempt to describe every fly that may be found on the banks 

 of our rivers, would not only require a thorough knowledge of en- 

 tomology, to which I have no pretentious, but would, even if I 

 could accomplish the task, be of very little practical utility to my 

 angling readers. Trouts, unlike ourselves, are not partial to 

 rarities in the eating way, and the more common the fly the more 

 it seems to be appreciated amongst them, so that it will be quite 

 sufficient for me to point out some of the most common kinds, as 

 it is at imitations of these the fish are ever found to rise at with the 

 greatest avidity. Many rivers in which I have fished have flies 

 peculiar to themselves, and which are highly esteemed by the in- 

 habitants of such waters, but which are almost unknown in streams 

 within a very short distance, and in the latter place either the 

 natural fly or its imitations prove far less attractive. This occurs 

 in a very remarkable manner in the river Inney, in Cornwall, 

 whose banks during the middle and latter end of June contain 

 swarms of the fern web, or coch a bonddu, which the trout there at 

 those times are so eager after that more can be caught during the 

 fern web season, with that bait than with any kind of fly what- 

 ever at any other period ; and yet by the side of the Tamar, 

 into which this stream merges itself, fern webs are rarely 



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