MATTER OF EQUIPMENT 13 



means the great majority of fly-fishermen 

 where much whipping and wading of the stream 

 by all sorts and conditions of fishermen, good, 

 bad, and indifferent, have rendered the trout 

 wise in their generation, cannot well afford to 

 overlook the possibilities of the floating fly. In 

 such streams the trout only upon rare occasions 

 are afforded the opportunity of seeing a single 

 artificial fly, singularly lifelike in appearance, 

 cocked and floating in a natural way upon the 

 surface and they will rise to such a fly, if clev- 

 erly placed on the water in such a manner as 

 not to arouse suspicion, when a drag of two or 

 more wet flies would only serve to set them 

 down still more obstinately. 



Parenthetically, in this connection, in view of 

 the fact that fishing with the dry fly is beyond 

 doubt a very successful method of taking trout 

 when or where other methods may have failed, 

 it should be obvious to put the matter on a 

 strictly practical basis that the assumption of 

 an " holier than thou " relation by the dry fly 

 enthusiast toward his brother of the wet fly, on 

 the ground that dry fly fishing is more sports- 

 manlike, is, to say the least, somewhat illogical. 

 Surely there is little virtue in the resort to and 

 employment of an angling method of proved 

 deadliness under conditions which at the time 



