60 ARTIFICIAL FLY-FISHING. 



If our amateur friends had to make their living by 

 fly-fishing, there are few of them we would care for 

 dining with often. 



Besides being the most attractive and valuable, 

 artificial fly-fishing is the most difficult branch of 

 the angler's art, and this is another reason of the 

 preference accorded to it, since there is more merit, 

 and therefore more pleasure, in excelling in what 

 is difficult. An opinion, however, has of late years 

 been gaining ground, that worm-fishing in a clear 

 water is more difficult than fly-fishing. This opin- 

 ion has been supported by Mr. Stodclart, who says 

 : "It may perhaps startle some, and those no 

 novices in the art, when I declare, and offer more- 

 over to prove, that worm-fishing for trout requires 

 essentially more address and experience, as well as 

 a better knowledge of the habits and instincts of 

 the trout, than fly-fishing. I do not, be it observed, 

 refer to the practice of this branch of the art as it 

 is followed in hill-burns and petty rivulets, neither 

 do I allude to it as pursued after heavy rains in 

 flooded and discoloured waters; my affirmation 

 bears solely upon its practice as carried on during 

 the summer months in the southern districts of 

 Scotland, when the rivers are clear and low, and 

 the skies bright and warm,"* 



This is an opinion from which we entirely dis- 

 sent, and though Mr. Stoddart offers to prove his 

 assertion, he does not attempt doing so. That 

 * Stoddart's Angler's Companion, chapter vi. page 106. 



