2 Wet-Fly Fishing 



keep on comparing the merits of the two 

 systems, in the body of the book itself. 



The men who are the most dogmatic, 

 exclusive, and narrow-minded are they who 

 fish year out year in one river, or class 

 of river; be it of the "wet" or "dry" fly 

 type or "school." To such, Tennyson's 

 words seem to me very appropriate, " They 

 take the rustic murmur of their bourg for 

 the great wave that echoes round the 

 world " ; and I maintain that, as in social 

 life, so is it in angling. Nothing sweeps 

 away narrow and unworthy prejudices like 

 travelling, since travel means meeting with 

 men of all shades of thought. 



The writer, who is also a freemason, 

 is quite sure that the freemasonry of the 

 angler's craft is hardly less sacred, since it 

 is, as it ought to be, a brotherhood ; em- 

 bodying within it, as does freemasonry, 

 men of all shades of opinion. 



In the writer's opinion, the dry fly is 

 neither more nor less than the slow and gra- 

 dual evolution of its progenitor the wet fly, 

 adapted to rivers which are specially suitable. 



The more we fish, the more do trout 

 become educated and knowing ; and whether 

 it be in Scotland or elsewhere, when trout 

 are few and far between, or many, but 



