444r THE COMPLETE ANGtER. PART If* 



other flies. But with these two, the green-drake and 

 the stone fly, I do verily believe I could, some days 

 in my life, had I not been weary of slaughter, have 

 loaden a lusty boy ; and have sometimes, J do 

 honestly assure you, given over upon the mere account 

 of satiety of sport ; which will be no hard matter to 

 believe, when I likewise assure you, that with this 

 very fly, I have, in this very river that runs by us, 

 in three or four hours, taken thirty, five-and-thirty, 

 and forty of the best Trouts in the river. What 

 shame and pity is it then, that such a river should be 

 destroyed, by the basest sort of people, by those un- 

 lawful ways of fire and netting in the night, and of 

 damming, groping, spearing, hanging, and hooking 

 by day ; which are now grown so common, that 

 though we have very good laws to punish such offend- 

 ers, every rascal does it, for aught I see, impune. 



To conclude, I cannot now, in honesty, but frankly 

 tell you, that many of these flies I have named, at least 

 so made as we make them here, will preadvcnture do 

 you no great service in your Southern rivers * : and 

 will not conceal from you, but that I have sent flies to 

 several friends in London, that for aught 1 could ever 

 hear, never did any great feats with them ; and there- 

 fore if you intend to profit by my instructions, you 



* The reader may rest assured, that with some or other of these flies 

 especially with the .palmers or hackles, the great dun, dark-brown^ early 

 (and late) bright-bronvn, the black-gnat, yellotv-dun, great -whirling-dun, dun- 

 tut, green and grey-drake, camlet-fly^ coiv-dung-fly, little ant-Jly, badger-fly-^ 

 and 

 water 

 water, 



truth of this,; he need not doubt, when he is told, that, in the year 

 1754, a gentleman, now living who went into Wales to fish with the 

 flies, last above-mentioned, made as above is directed did, in about six 

 weeks' time, kill near a thousand brace of Trout and Grayling ; as appear- 

 ed to him by an account, in writing, which he kept of each day's success. 

 In confirmation whereof, and as a proof how the rivers in Wales abound 

 with fish, the reader will find in the- Appendix, No. V. a like account, 

 kept by another person, of fish, toastonishing amount, caught by him, i 

 a series of years, in some of the Welsh rivers ; which account was sen$ 

 by him to Mr. Bartholomew Lowe, fishing-tackle-maker, in Drury-lane.| 

 24th Feb. 1 766, and is inserted in his own words. 



