156 Wet- Fly Fishing 



joints, and rings ; nothing seems left to 

 write about save the varnish. 



A good deal of scribbling, I consider, 

 has been thrown away over the so-called 

 flashing in the sun of a highly varnished 

 rod, and the need for giving to rods a dull 

 finish. I cannot say that I ever found any 

 really first-rate fly-fisherman complain that 

 he had failed to score because of the flashing 

 of his rod, and I think it is somewhat of 

 an armchair theory. 



Did no one ever observe, when another 

 angler is throwing a long line in a calm, 

 bright, sunshiny day especially a thick 

 and heavy line that if you happen to be 

 standing at the proper angle, "the glare," 

 as the line is being lifted off the water, has 

 at times all the vividness of flash, of the 

 heliograph itself? I saw it strikingly on 

 one occasion while I was calmly sitting 

 down, doing nothing in particular, and I 

 thought how such a flash must scare the 

 trout. But I reflected that, after all, it 

 was not so absolutely certain that the trout 

 would see it, simply because I, who 

 happened to be seated at the angle of 

 reflection, did. Fortunately, it is a thing 

 not very often observed, and by the angler 

 himself (so far as I am aware), never. I see 



