92 Artificial- Fly Fishing. 



tioned whether Izaak himself, were he to revisit 

 his former haunts and fight his battles o'er again 

 with his own old weapons, would be able to kill 

 one fish now where he was wont then to kill twenty. 

 To meet the exigencies of the case now, the fly- 

 fisher must learn to cast at any angle to the wind, 

 and at any angle to the bank, to cover a rising fish 

 with certainty in stream or pool; to cast under 

 banks and overhanging trees, from pebbly channels 

 and from ledges of shelving rook. In a word, he 

 must be emphatically the man of resources, able 

 from his knowledge and his skill to adapt himself 

 and his style to the circumstances of the moment, 

 and to meet with prompt and proper action every 

 varying condition and sudden emergency. For his 

 increased experience will have taught him that 

 trout are to be found in other spots than those 

 which he can reach with ease, that the biggest fish 

 often lie in seemingly unlikely quarters, and that 

 many a pounder breathes unmolested in waters 

 passed over by most anglers in the belief that 

 casting there would be impracticable. 



But I have advised the beginner to try his skill 

 first in the most favourable conditions of water and 

 weather, on a gently running stream, with the wind 

 blowing up. Let him wade in from the channel 

 side and fish up, casting out towards the opposite 

 bank. His object being to lay his flies as near the 



