THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 97 



lapped about with yellow silk, the wings made of the feathers of 

 the drake, or of the buzzard. The eleventh is the shell-fly, good 

 in mid July; the body made of greenish wool, lapped about with 

 the herl of a peacock's tail, and the wings made of the wings of 

 the buzzard. The twelfth is the dark drake-fly, good in August ; 

 the body made with black wool, lopped about with black silk ; 

 his wings are made with the mail of the black drake, with a 

 black head. Thus have you a jury of flies likely to betray and 

 condemn all the trouts in the river. 



I shall next give you some other directions for fly-fishing, such 

 as arc given by Mr. Thomas Barker, a gentleman that hatii spent 

 much time in fishing ; but I shall do it with a little variation.* 



First, let your rod be light, and very gentle ; I take the best to 

 be of two pieces :f and let not your line exceed, — especially for 

 three or four links next to the hook, — I say, not exceed three or 



* These directions are taken, with little variation, from The Art of 

 Angling, by Thomas Barker. See Bib. Preface, pp. xlv., xlvi., xlvii. — Arn. Ed. 



t As few persons in these days make their own rods, it may be well here 

 to give some directions how to choose or order a rod to be made. A trout 

 fly-rod should not be more thin fourteen feet and a half at furthest ; the 

 butt solid, for you need weight there to balance the instrument, and your 

 spare tips will be carried more s:ifely in the handle of your landing-net. 

 I use, in fishing streams, a light handle about four and a half feet long 

 with a small net attached, which is more easily carried under the left arm, 

 and answers every purpose. A rod in three pieces is preferred at the 

 stream, but inconvenient to carry, and, if well made, four will not inter- 

 fere materially with its excelience; i. e. tiie butt of ash, the first joint of 

 hickory, the second of lance wood, and the tip of East India bamboo, or, 

 as I like better, the extreme of the tip of whalebone well spliced on. The 

 rod should be sensibly ehistic down to the hand, but proportionately so, for 

 if one part seem not proportionately pliant, the rod is weak somewhere. 

 Every part should bear its share of the strain, or it will disappoint your 

 hand in the cast of the fly or the play of the fish. In some rods there is 

 what is called a double action, and such a one (the first I ever had) I used 

 for years, and thought nothing could be better; but, on trying another 

 stifier (that is, the elasticity less, not at the further end, but nearer the 

 hand), tliough at first rather awkward in tlie use of the novelty, I learned 

 to like it better ; and now believe it a mistake to have the rod so very 

 pliant, as some young fly-fishers affect to like it. The proper elasticity is 

 when a quarter of an ounce weight attached to the tip causes it to descend 

 five feet below the horizontal line of a rod fourteen feet long. The entire 

 weight of the rod should not exceed a pound. The rod should be procured 



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