FLY-FISHING FOR BROOK TROUT 



"Of all sports, commend me to angling; it is the wisest, 

 virtuousest, best." THOMAS HOOD. 



HEN I go fishing, it is for the purpose of 

 catching fish; when I go angling fly- 

 fishing it is the soul I seek to replenish, 

 not the creel. 



"One of the charms of angling," says 

 Pritt, "is that it presents an endless field 

 for argument, speculation and experiment." 

 True, but anglers have no argument in 

 the first feature of their pastime the 

 object of it. Fishermen and men who 

 do not go fishing or angling argue that the object sought 

 by the angler is the fish, but anglers all agree that the 

 game is but one of the trillion of pleasant things that attract 

 them to the pursuit of it. 



They argue and speculate and experiment in the matter 

 of rods and tackle, and they argue as to the virtues of the 

 various species, the qualities of the waters, the conditions 

 of the weather, but they have ever been and ever will be 

 calmly agreed as to the object of it all the love of studying 

 rather than destroying the game, the love of the pursuit 

 itself. 



They angle because of its healthfulness, and the con- 

 sequent exhilaration of mind and body that attends the 

 gentle practice, not merely for the fishes it may procure 

 them, or for the sake of killing something, as the unen- 

 lightened person charges, for the death of an animal, to the 

 angler, is the saddest incident of his day. 



All things animate, man included, were made to kill and 

 to be killed. The only crimes in killing are in killing our 

 own kind, and in killing any kind inhumanly. 



And, of all creatures, the angler is the least offender in 

 these crimes. The very game he seeks, though beautiful 

 and gentle to the eye, and, at times, noble in deed and pur- 

 pose, is the most brutal killer of all the races the lovely 

 trout in its attacks upon gaudy flies, the valiant bass and 

 pike in devouring their smaller brethren, and the multi- 

 tudinous sea-fishes, not alone in their feeding upon one 

 another, but in their wanton murder of the millions upon 

 millions of victims of their pure love of slaughter. 

 But, of fly-fishing for brook trout: 



"Fly-fishing," says Dr. Henshall, "is the poetry of an- 

 gling;" and "the genuine angler," says Frederick Pond, 

 "is invariably a poet." 



Fly-fishing, the highest order of angling, is indulged in in 

 several forms in fresh water for salmon, trout, black bass, 



