92 TROUTING FLIES. 



advantageously. On a narrow stream, the banks of 

 which are overgrown with reeds, brushwood, heather, 

 or long grass, anything in fact that is apt to interfere 

 with the management of the line, I would recommend 

 the angler to employ only two flies, and these set at a 

 short distance from each other. 



Loch flies for trout, I have as yet only alluded to, 

 nor is a great deal required to be said upon this sub- 

 ject. In common with river flies, they are capable of 

 being reduced to two or three varieties. These, in 

 their simple state, are, as before-mentioned, the black 

 hackle, the red or brown ditto, and hare-lug fly. A 

 division however, so very primitive and elemental, when 

 applied to loch flies is apt, I am aware, to be ridiculed 

 and sneered at by pedants in the art ; nor in fact, do I 

 intend it, in practice, to be pushed to the extreme. It 

 is only tasteful and becoming to admit variety into the 

 fly assortment, provided this variety be placed under 

 proper control. When I allude therefore to the hackles 

 in question, as forming along with the hare-lug the only 

 flies required by the angler, I wish it to be understood 

 that the fundamental, I do not say requisite, portion of 

 the dressing consists of the material after which the 

 hook is named. It cannot be denied that, in the case 

 of the hackle fly, the wing, tinsel, and dubbing, whether 

 of silk or wool, possess, on many occasions, an attractive 

 influence over trout, nay, even a combination of these 

 without hackle at all, may constitute a taking lure; but 

 what is proved by all this but that fish are allured, not 

 on account of the close resemblance which the artificial 

 hook is designed to have to particular insects appropri- 

 ate to particular months and seasons, but from other 

 causes of a different nature? These are size, motion, 

 form and colour ; the latter qualification being the one 



