82 Wet-Fly Fishing 



From the centre I soon found out, how- 

 ever, that I could not wade ashore to either 

 bank. When I had satisfied myself on this 

 point, I realized that my luck had come at 

 last. 



I can throw as clean a line against, as 

 with, an ordinary breeze ; and so, with 

 fairly deep water (but little disturbed) on 

 both sides of me, all I had to do, was to 

 begin wading the stream slowly upwards, 

 and then the pool a pool which I afterwards 

 frequently harried to my heart's content. 



May I now be permitted to draw a 

 significant picture from life, and an exceed- 

 ingly common picture, in Scotland, it is, 

 and one which has given rise to many 

 ridiculous strictures on wet-fly fishing by 

 some experts of the dry fly, who have only 

 paid " a flying visit " to the North. 



The curtain rises on a local fisherman, 

 and the chances are, that he wields a heavy, 

 clumsy, two-handed rod; and also uses 

 whole-gut, and not too fine gut at that. 



He starts at the top of the stretch of 

 water he means to fish, and he fishes it down. 

 He would laugh, were he told that he had 

 no more idea of watercraft, and of the many 

 interesting problems which present them- 

 selves to the true wet-fly angler, than had 



