MR. STEWART'S SYSTEM. 187 



this. I mention only one, the most recent I can call 

 to mind. 



Lately I was fishing the Itchen, at Bishopstoke ; it was 

 getting towards dusk, the fish came on to rise very rapidly, 

 fly after fly did I try, in the very thickest of the boils, 

 covering half-a-dozen fish at every cast ; every likely fly 

 I could think of was tried and rejected, and not a single 

 rise could I get ; the fly they were rising at was a very 

 small one, but, small as it was, they knew perfectly well 

 the difference between it and others of the same size, even 

 though it was evening. By great difficulty and some luck 

 I got one of the flies, and saw it was a red spinner. I was 

 able to find a red spinner without much trouble, and in less 

 than twenty minutes I had two-and-a-half brace of fine 

 fish, when the rise was over. The general principles so 

 much favoured by our friends in the north, in their selec- 

 tion of flies, would have been utterly useless here. There 

 is no doubt that a general selection of a dozen flies (upon 

 the principles advocated by the author of ' The Practical 

 Angler,' Mr. Stewart) for the entire season makes very 

 easy work of it, and the angler is not much puzzled as 

 to selection. Such a system may suit the northern rivers, 

 but upon our well-whipped southern streams the fish like 

 a little more attention paid to their fancies, because we 

 have not generally those resources in minnow, worm, 

 and larva-fishing to fall back upon, when we fail with 

 the fly, which our brothers over the border practise ; for 

 upon our best streams they are not allowed, and we are 

 restricted to artificial fly-fishing. I do not doubt for one 

 moment that Mr Stewart's flies I select Mr. Stewart, 1 

 not as the originator, perhaps, but as the exponent of a 

 system I say I do not doubt that Mr. Stewart's flies kill 

 well at times, because the best of them very strongly 



1 Mr. Stewart died, alas ! a week before this sheet was corrected for the 

 3rd edition, February 1872. F. F. 



