Flies and Fly-fishing. 377 



and had ascertained the depth of the water, they were 

 ready, and we began to fish together. 



Obviously the color of the water indicated a Black 

 Dose, while its turbidity made surface fishing hopeless. 

 So with a No. 4 single fly I longed out to reach an eddy 

 about fifty or sixty feet distant, let my fly sink until I 

 judged it to be near the bottom, and drew the line 

 through the rings with my left hand, thus fishing the 

 fly all the way from where it sank almost up to the 

 boat. The shore party soon returned, but by that time 

 I had taken five, while my coadjutors had fastened but 

 one fish, which they promptly proceeded to lose in the 

 process of "derricking" it out. The angler will at once 

 perceive that their bait was by no means of the best, 

 and that in all probability they were unable to reach 

 the best places. But they did not seem to suspect they 

 were handicapped. Never, apparently, were men more 

 astonished, and to hear them talk of it afterwards it 

 would almost have been thought that I had been taking 

 whales from the distance of a quarter of a mile with a 

 wheat straw and a strand from a spider's web. 



The average denizen of the wilderness has a very 

 poor opinion of a city man's ability to do anything ex- 

 cept wear " store " clothes and spend money. While he 

 smiles with incredulity at all verbal professions of abil- 

 ity to do, he is at the same time very alive to the logic 

 of observed facts. To profess at the outside not more 

 than 25 per cent, of what one feels sure one can accom- 

 plish, is nowhere more judicious than in the wilderness. 



Next in my favor, where the trout run large, is the 

 well-known " Montreal," with crimson body and hackle, 

 flat gold tinsel, scarlet tail, and brown turkey or, bet- 

 ter still, brown mallard wing. 



