AMERICAN TROUT FISHING 

 caddis, as you can get the exact shade. They look well on the water and 

 good trout approve of them. Any fly may be made to float well, even if the 

 body is made of wool. I dislike this material, yet several patterns seem to 

 require it. 



Our old friend, the Gold-ribbed Hare's -ear is a good fly, in two shades, 

 light and dark (I add a grizzled hackle to make it cock and float still 

 better), but, tell it not in Gath, I have killed a great many of the best fish 

 on a fly that has been very troublesome, as the quills and hackles are 

 rare over here. In England they would probably be easy enough, and 

 we can have three shades of dun, dark, medium and light, in quills 

 and hackles. This gives a number of flies that are often plentiful in 

 spring and early summer. The wings are plain wood duck, split, a light 

 feather, giving the effect of semi-transparency, not dull and heavy, as 

 are many of the wings used. This fly has been in use nine years, so has 

 proved itself. 



There are flies that kill everywhere, and the Wickham is one of these. 

 It may be dressed large and resemble a big brown Sedge, and is a favourite 

 with night fishers, or it may be tied very small with pale dun wings and 

 ginger hackles, and have the appearance of one of the little light-coloured 

 caddis, fiuttering on the water. If you like you can have a silver body, or 

 Silver Sedge. In looking over a large stock of artificial fiies at the dealer's, 

 one will not go far wrong if one selects the more natural appearing flies. 

 Brown, brown-red, dun, yellow, orange and black: you will choose the 

 colours you prefer, and have confldence in, and probably do well with, 

 them. Nature's colours are in harmony, and many of the flies sold in the 

 shops can only appeal to the curiosity of the fish, or enrage them to such 

 an extent that they try to smash these glaring discords. 



Tame or very hungry fish will rise at anything that they fancy eatable. 

 If not found desirable the object is promptly blown out of the mouth. 

 An acquaintance of mine, a professor, of an inquiring turn of mind, visited 

 a pond near a hatchery last summer, where one was permitted to fish on 

 payment of fifty cents per pound for the trout killed. As the fish were free 

 risers, he tried them with a piece of chewing gum, a cigarette butt, and a 

 small piece of tobacco from a cigar. All these were cheerfully accepted, 

 and taken down, only to be rejected in a moment. I have tempted a big 

 chub with a small block of wood, and a black bass of about a pound with 

 part of a cigarette. This last was blown out and as the paper dissolved 

 many chubs came to investigate the grain of tobacco, but the white paper 



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