SEDGE AND MAYFLY. 147 



The little discrepancy is not the fault of the fly or 

 of altered seasons, but of man who, for his own 

 purposes and without regard to the angler, threw 

 the times out of joint in 1752, and altered the 

 calendar. 



Mayfly fishing is just like other dry-fly fishing, 

 the only difference being that it is on a larger scale. 

 The fly is bigger, and the gut must be stronger ; 

 drawn gut is a mistake with the Mayfly. Only a 

 :short time ago an angler lamented to me the loss 

 of a really big fish from the use of it. If one is 

 .going for the biggest trout of all one can confidently 

 use quite thick gut. These monsters seldom or 

 never rise to small flies, so they have not the 

 intimacy with the angler's apparatus that their 

 smaller, better-rising brethren acquire. As to the 

 artificial Mayfly, there are many patterns. They 

 are very expensive, very fragile, and most irritating 

 to the temper. I have no great belief in the 

 superiority ol one pattern of body over another, but 

 I like Egyptian goose feathers as wings, and a 

 black and white hackle known as " badger " hackle 

 as legs. Winged Mayflies of the best quality cost 

 from 4d. to 6d. each, and in the hands of a rather 

 rough fisherman like myself their life is deplorably 

 brief. Often a good fly has not survived five 



minutes of casting with me, and in a day's fishing 



L 2 



