FLY FISHING. 49 



also is, when it changes its dress and assumes the garb of the red 

 spinner. But a great many, particularly the smaller ones, are 

 best imitated by a hackle, though some imagine that all hackles 

 are only adapted for imitations of the palmer worm, and really 

 some we see are as much like them as they are to any thing else ; 

 yet depend upon it whatever the intent of their makers may be, 

 the fish generally, if deceived at all, mistake them either for winged 

 flies or beetles ; and as a proof of their often mistaking them for 

 the latter, I have found from experience, and which is also borne 

 out by that of many others, that the imitation of the fern web 

 fly, when that fly was up strong, and all others very lightly es- 

 teemed, proved much more successful when trimmed as a hackle, 

 the body being of a dark peacock or ostrich herl, with a red hackle 

 black at the root over all, than when trimmed with the beetle wing 

 made from the red feather of a partridge's tail, which to a casual 

 observer gives a much more natural representation of the fly in the 

 point of view to which it is offered to their notice ; but it must be 

 remarked, that a fern web when struggling in the water presents 

 a very different appearance than when on land, as in the former 

 instance it invariably expands its wings, which being black and 

 their outer coverings red, exhibit to the fishes just the effect pro- 

 duced by the hackle : an appearance very different from the wing 

 coverings when in a state of repose, in which state the fishes can 

 rarely see them. 



I purpose now to offer a few remarks upon the proper season of 

 the year for fly fishing, which is commonly considered to com- 

 mence on the 14th of February, though according to worthy old 

 Izaak, no man can honestly catch a trout till the middle of March; 

 and generally speaking the quaint old angler's remark is a just one ; 

 for notwithstanding all the trout may have finished spawning by 

 this time, still they will almost invariably before March is some- 

 way advanced be found in such wretched order as to be quite unfit 

 for the table ; and it is much to be regretted that a fish so excellent 

 in his proper season, should be doomed to destruction at a time he 

 is utterly worthless in an edible point of view, and we will put it 

 to the every fair sportsman, whether he ever committed a. large 

 trout to his basket when regularly out of season, without feeling 

 a certain twinge of conscience which told him that this ought not 

 to have been done. Still, as there appears to be no general rule 

 without an exception, I am quite ready to admit that fishing may 



