56 THE PRACTICAL ANGLER 



In trouting with the minnow, worm, or natural 

 fly, the angler has the real fish, worm, or insect, with 

 which to entice the trout, but in fly-fishing he has, 

 by means of a few feathers, to deceive the wary keen- 

 sighted fish, and make it believe that his imitation 

 is a natural fly either alive or dead. Any one will 

 at once see that this is the more difficult, and that 

 to prevail upon a trout to seize a reality does not 

 afford room for the exercise of so much skill as to 

 prevail upon the same trout to seize an imitation. 

 Hence fly-fishing, in the same condition of water, 

 requires more address than angling with the worm, 

 or any other known method ; and consequently, fly- 

 fishing in a clear low water is, beyond comparison, 

 the most difficult of all the branches of the angler's 

 art, and should therefore rank highest as sport. 



This, however, is not an art that can be learned in 

 a day, or so easily as some seem to imagine. A 

 beginner becomes enamoured of fly-fishing. For six 

 weeks he grinds at Walton and all the other authorities.^ 

 upon the subject, and having equipped himself with 

 all the paraphernalia for waging a war of extermina- 

 tion upon the finny tribe, he rolls his hat round 

 with cast after cast of flies, which bear a far greater 

 resemblance to humble-bees than river insects ; and 

 thus accoutred, sets out to put his acquired informa- 

 tion in practice. Arrived at the river- side he finds 

 his mistake : if the water be swollen, and of the dark 

 porter colour so celebrated among anglers, he may 

 be rewarded with the capture of a few trout ; but if 

 it be clear, he plies his lure to the terror and alarm 



