THE OBJECT OF FISHING 17 



that they alone are sportsmen, that the floating 

 fly is the only honourable, the most scientific, 

 means of capturing trout, and suggesting that it is 

 to be used only by a few mortals, who have been 

 endowed by Nature with extraordinary intelligence. 



It is not surprising that only a comparatively 

 small number of anglers have had the courage or 

 the vanity to adopt a lure which demands so much. 

 Any legal lure is honourable, if used in waters 

 where it is not forbidden by general agreement. 

 The dry-fly is not the most scientific lure, that is 

 to say, it does not call for the most expert know- 

 ledge ; the place of honour is occupied by the 

 artificial nymph. 



It has been laid down that a dry-fly must be 

 presented only to a rising trout. Now every angler 

 knows that there are days, many of them in the 

 course of a season, when he will not see a single 

 fish rising. Is he, after journeying fifty miles or 

 more to the river, to weary his soul out waiting for 

 the rise that never comes? Does he cease to be 

 a sportsman if he enjoys himself casting the wet- 

 fly, worm, dry-fly, or any other lure? The art of 

 dry-fly fishing consists of fishing with a floating 

 fly. Every sensible angler will place it over a rise 

 when that is possible, and into likely places when 

 no fish are rising. He will act in precisely the 

 same way as the wet-fly man acts ; the only differ- 

 ence between the methods is, that in the one case 

 the fly floats and in the other it sinks. 



The man who praises the clear-water worm does 

 not declare that we must on no account offer a worm 

 to a trout until we first discover that the trout is 

 feeding on worms. If he did, he would be no more 



B 



