The Fishing of Waters with the Wet Fly 5 1 



its precious hours, fishing unlikely and un- 

 productive stretches of water, and he must 

 work hard, whenever the trout are in 

 a rising mood. He must know intuitively 

 (but also by study and observation) the 

 most likely places in which to meet with 

 success wind, season, weather, sky, and 

 condition of water all being considered ; he 

 should know the best points of a fly, and 

 all the better, if he can dress his own flies. 

 He must be able to cast well, and to use, 

 with confidence, even the finest drawn gut. 

 Knots of all kinds must be as an open book 

 to him, else he is, at best, but a helpless 

 sort of fisherman. It has always staggered 

 me that there really exist quite " old 

 hands," who hardly know how to make 

 up a collar (gut casting-line), or how to 

 put on a dropper neatly ; and so, all round, 

 I affirm that a man who takes up wet-fly 

 fishing seriously (and it is not worth taking 

 up at all, unless it is taken up thus), should 

 learn to be independent of others ; that, go 

 where he may, he will be able to paddle 

 his own canoe. I preach what I practised 

 in youth. I could, and I did, tie my own 

 flies, and I have never seen any flies which 

 killed better than my own simple flies did. 

 If my rod broke I could splice it and go 



