The Impatient Angler 1 7 



first half of the month of May, but I 

 have had good times along the streams 

 and in the ponds at all times during the 

 open season and in all sorts of country 

 and weather, though never with but one 

 bait, the true angler's bait the artificial 

 fly, superlative of all trout lures. 



Sometimes in early April I flail this 

 delicate morsel in the snowy water of high 

 mountain streams, sometimes in the val- 

 ley freshets, sometimes in the flat-land 

 ponds, and again along the borders of 

 larger waters. And I have angled in 

 these "pleasant places" at other seasons, 

 my favorite period in May, and again in 

 the warmest days of happy midsummer 

 time, but always, as I say, with but one 

 lure, the feathered hook, that tiny, hu- 

 mane thing, without the use of which 

 no man can possibly angle with "the 

 gentleness of spirit and calm serenity of 

 mind," attributed to the honest fisher- 

 man by Washington Irving. 



My personal choice of early-season flies 



