28 FLY FISHING 



sorts of things tend to hurry and exasperation, 

 which lead certainly to bad fishing, which in turn 

 ends in a small basket and disgust. 



People talk sometimes as if a sort of still slow 

 patience were the great quality exercised by 

 angling. It ought much more properly to be 

 called self-control, and if another quality essen- 

 tial to success is to be added, let it be endur- 

 ance. Hard work and continual effort make a 

 tremendous difference to the basket in fly-fishing, 

 and though the amount of strength required 

 for any given cast may not be great, yet eight 

 hours' fishing even with a single-handed trout 

 rod is, if the most be made of the time, a hard 

 day's work. 



There is not, it is true, the same glory of 

 physical strength and prowess in angling as in 

 games ; but, on the other hand, the skill required 

 is as difficult and various, and can be maintained 

 unimpaired long after the highest point of physical 

 activity has been reached and passed. When, 

 moreover, as the years go on, reflection and 

 observation begin to take the place of competi- 

 tion, a wider pleasure in angling opens out. 

 The extent to which we appreciate this is, I 



