THE COiMPLETE ANGLER. 



rnmonly iiuike muffs of: for the hair on the tail of such 



.'S and turns to a red brown, but the hair of a smooth- 



;g of tlie same color will not do because it will not dye, 



Vdiy CK^ ...uch in (lifierent places. Our fly-fishing season includes May, 

 June, July, and August ; and as a general rule for May and June, I would 

 use — 1. Drab bodies, with light or cream-colored wings. 2. Yellow bodies, 

 with light or brown wings. 3. Red bodies, with light or brown wings. 

 For July and August, red and brown flies." This is, of course, not to the 

 exclusion of the palmers or wingless hackles 



My own experience on the inland streams is not much earlier than the 

 end of April, and my practice is to observe the fly on the waters for my tail 

 fly, and experiment with hackles on tlie drop. My favorite early flies are 

 the March brown, stone, blue dun, and the cow dung ; to be followed, as the 

 season advances, by the ^reen and grey drake, and later, the claret and red 

 bodies, with light brown, sometimes more showy wings. For the hackles, 

 the red hackle is the queen, — but a large coarse black or furnace hackle, 

 silver ribbed, kills early : afterwards, the sorrel gold ribbed ; in the sum- 

 mer, red and black hackles, small and very buzz. As a general rule, my 

 flies grow smaller as the summer advances, for then the waters are lower 

 and clearer, while the sky is brighter. 



From all these opinions, the reader will see that the routine system is 

 neither to be contemptuously rejected nor slavishly followed. There are 

 flies that kill all the season ; but the stone-fly will not tell in August, nor the 

 claret body in April. Still, it cannot be doubted, that the trout, like men, 

 have their caprices of appetite, and, except in the first few days of the 

 May-fly, they may be as glad of a chance at a fly out of season, as an epicure 

 would be of early green peas. 



In this country, fly-fishing for trout is out of question before March, 

 and, except on Long Island, before the middle of April, that is, after the 

 cliill of the snow freshets is gone, and when the streams, though full, are 

 clear. After the first of September, a truo-heartcd angler v/ill not wet a 

 line in a trout stream. It will therefore be readily seen, as has been ob- 

 served, that directions serviceable in Great Britain and Ii-eland, must be 

 greatly modified to be of use among us, from tlic varieties of our climate, 

 the character of our waters, and the habits of our aquatic insects. I shall, 

 therefore, conclude the notes on this part of our subject by i list of flies 

 Airnislied by an excellent brother of our gentle art, who relieves the labors 

 of a life most zealously devoted to the best interests of his lellow-men, by 

 occasionally fishing the head waters of the Susquehannah and Delaware, 

 all the tributaries to wliich abound in trout. His particular haunts are the 

 streams of Pike, Wayne, and Suscjuehaniiah counties in Pennsylvania, and 

 of Sullivan and Broome in New York. To great skill at the stream side, 

 he unites equal aptness in making his own flies from the means within his 

 reach. If, from the directions given, the reader should acquire a due pro- 



