12 THE PRACTICAL FISHERMAN. 



Entomology," says: "The best days to select for fly-fishing are warm 

 and cloudy, with a gentle breeze from south or west, causing a ripple 

 on the water, by which the fish is not only prevented from seeing the 

 fisherman so plainly as in smooth water, but is also deprived of so good 

 an opportunity of detecting the fly-maker's artifice. The water after 

 a flood is sometimes for several days too turbid for fly-fishing. When 

 it is very low in its bed and clear, the circumstances are also unpro- 

 pitious, and success is obtained with difficulty. When the water is 

 unusually high, though the water be not discoloured, the fish seem to be 

 feeding more at the bottom than above." This, of course, applies chiefly 

 to fly-fishing ; but T have thought fit to reproduce it because it seems 

 to me to show how the tendency of modern angler wisdom is to 

 reduce to simple rules all the ancient jargon of fishing unwisdom, and 

 to seek success through a thoroughly scientific deduction from incon- 

 trovertible observation of Nature's self. 



The alteration in the making and general appearance of tackle is 

 even more marked than the change in the general attitude of anglers in 

 reference to the art. It is true that according to JElian, as quoted by 

 Dr. Badham, the Macedonians were in the habit of making an artificial 

 fly to imitate the " hippurus," whatever that might have been, with which 

 they caught the ' ' speckled ' ' beauties referred to above, and that this 

 imitation was subtly done there may reasonably be little doubt ; but 

 in England it was very different in the earlier age of the art of tackle 

 making. The gorge hook of Nobbes, for example, is figured in his book 

 like unto a dragon's tail, and armed with stiff wire, inflexible, and leaded ; 

 but the latest gorge hook, as shown in the chapter on "pike," is a much 

 finer affair; the flight, again, and the live bait tackle, have been of 

 late years so modified as to be scarcely recognisable as of the same 

 genera as that of fifty years ago. Similarly, the rod has undergone a 

 great alteration. Dame Juliana Berners speaks of using an ash pole, 

 which appears to have been of considerable dimensions. In contrast to 

 this, one of the latest improvement in manufactured rods is the American 

 spliced rod, which consists of six or nine pieces of the finest bamboo, in 

 sections, which are sawed with mathematical precision, and then whipped 

 with silk at intervals of half an inch ; these are extremely handsome and 

 beautifully light : the top is generally of lance wood. 



Again, what a difference is now made in the portableness of tackle ! 

 The old author to whom I have just referred speaks of carrying a 

 plummet, a whetstone to sharpen blunt hooks, and concludes: "I 

 need not advise you how to carry your bob and palmer, or put you 

 in mind of having several boxes of divers sizes for your hooks, 

 corks, silk thread, lead, flies, or admonish you not to forget your 



