DIFFICULTY OF FLY-FISHING. 6 1 



there are fewer worm-fishers who meet with 

 success when the waters are clear, than there are 

 fly-fishers who meet with success when the waters 

 are coloured, we admit. But between fly-fishing 

 when the waters are swollen after rain, or as it is 

 practised among unwary fish in Highland streams, 

 and fly-fishing in our much-fished southern streams, 

 when the waters are clear, we draw the same dis- 

 tinction as Mr. Stoddart does between worm-fish- 

 ing in a coloured water and a clear one ; and the 

 number of fly-fishers who meet with success under 

 the circumstances just mentioned is exceedingly 

 limited. 



In trout ing with the minnow, worm, or natural 

 fly, the angler has the real fish, worm, or insect, 

 with which to entice the trout, but in fly-fishing 

 he has, by means of a few feathers, to deceive the 

 wary keen-sighted fish, and make it believe that 

 his imitation is a natural fly either alive or dead. 

 Any one will at once see that this is the more 

 difficult, and that to prevail upon a trout to seize 

 a reality does not afford room for the exercise of 

 so much skill as to prevail upon the same trout to 

 seize an imitation. Hence fly-fishing, in the same 

 condition of water, requires more address than 

 angling with the worm, or any other known 

 method ; and consequently, fly-fishing in a clear 

 low water is, beyond comparison, the most difficult 

 of all the branches of the angler's art, and should 

 therefore rank highest as sport. 



