ARTIFICIAL FLY-FISHING 55 



water is more difficult than fly-fishing. This opinion 

 has been supported by Mr. Stoddart, who says : " It 

 may perhaps startle some, and those no novices in 

 the art, when I declare, and offer moreover to prove, 

 that worm-fishing for trout requires essentially more 

 address and experience, as well as a better knowledge 

 of the habits and instincts of the trout, than fly- 

 fishing. I do not, be it observed, refer to the 

 practice of this branch of the art as it is followed in 

 hill-burns and petty rivulets, neither do I allude to 

 it as pursued after heavy rains in flooded and dis- 

 coloured waters ; my affirmation bears solely upon its 

 practice as carried on during the summer months in 

 the southern districts of Scotland, when the rivers 

 are clear and low, and the skies bright and warm. 1 " * 

 This is an opinion from which we entirely dissent, 

 and though Mr. Stoddart offers to prove his assertion, 

 he does not attempt doing so. That there are fewer 

 worm-fishers who meet with success when the waters 

 are clear, than there are fly-fishers who meet with 

 success when the waters are coloured, we admit. But 

 between fly-fishing when the waters are swollen after 

 rain, or as it is practised among unwary fish in 

 Highland streams, and fly-fishing in our much-fished 

 southern streams, when the waters are clear, we draw 

 the same distinction as Mr. Stoddart does between 

 worm-fishing in a coloured water and a clear one; 

 and the number of fly-fishers who meet with success 

 under the circumstances just mentioned is exceedingly 

 limited. 



* Stoddart's Angler's Companion, chapter vi. page 106. 



