CHAPTER XVIII 



FISHING WITH THE DEEPLY SUNKEN FLY 



THERE is fly-fishing and fly-fishing, yet there 

 is no single best way of taking trout. The dry- 

 fly purist insists that his is the most sportsman- 

 like method of handling the fuzzy- wuzzy lures; 

 a statement with which the wet-fly devotee 

 promptly takes issue, as he should. Now, if the 

 lover of the dry-fly method simply asserted that 

 his way of handling the artificial flies was the 

 most artistic, I am sure few would take issue with 

 him. Too often, it seems to me, we confuse art 

 and skill with sportsmanship; now, sportsman- 

 ship has to do with both, but depends upon 

 neither. In order to add variety to the contro- 

 versy between the two great schools of fly-fish- 

 ermen, I am going to advocate in this chapter 

 still another method. To be sure, fishing with a 

 deeply sunken fly is fishing with a saturated wet 

 fly, a very wet fly. Every bass fly-fisherman 

 knows that to let his flies sink for a depth of 

 six or eight inches is often very alluring to the 

 bronze-backs. By the same token, under cer- 



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