76 THE ANGLER'S GUIDE 



I have plenty of pockets in my treating coat, and I 

 make it a practice to tie a string to nearly everything I. 

 carry in them shears, hook-file, knife, match-box, tobacco- 

 pouch, pipe, purse, field-glasses, fly-book, etc. so that 

 I will not mislay them ordinarily, or drop them in the 

 rushing current during some exciting moment. 



The headgear I like is a gray, soft, felt hat of medium 

 brim to protect my eyes in the sun and to sit upon in the 

 shade. 



The footwear may consist of waterproof ankle shoes at- 

 tached to rubber or canvas trousers, or of a pair of light 

 close-fitting hip-rubber-boots. Some anglers wear rubber 

 water-proof combined trousers and stockings and any sort 

 of well-soled shoes. In warm weather, I affect nothing 

 beyond a pair of old shoes with holes cut in both sides to let 

 the water run freely in and out, the holes not big enough 

 to admit sand and pebbles. 



The artificial flies are of many hundreds of patterns. I 

 have a thousand or two, but half a hundred, of sizes four to 

 six for the lakes and ponds, and six to fourteen for the small 

 streams, are enough to select from during a season; two 

 dozen are sufficient for a single trip, half a dozen will do to 

 carry to the stream for a day if you don't lose many by 

 whipping them off or getting them caught in a tree and 

 two are all I use for the cast, though a cast of three flies 

 is the favorite of many fishermen. I amuse myself by 

 presuming to have a special list for each month, week, day 

 and hour, but the extravagantly erratic ideas of the trout 

 f orbi d my recommending it to brother rodmen. Trout that 

 show a preference for certain flies one day may the next day 

 favor entirely different patterns. Sometimes they will take 

 an imitation of the natural fly upon the water and at other 

 times, being gorged with the natural insect, will only strike 

 at some oddly colored concoction of no resemblance to 

 any living thing in nature; this in play, or in anger, 

 and at other times out of pure curiosity. An angler doesn't 

 need a great number of flies if he knows just what fly the 

 game is taking. You can't very well determine this half 

 a hundred miles from the fishing; so, you take a variety 

 with you and experiment. The flies should be of the best 

 make and freshest quality, tied by a practical hand 

 some honest maker who is himself an angler not the 

 cheap, dried-up, wall-decorative, bastard butterflies of 

 the ladies' dry-goods shop, that hybrid mess of gaudy waste 

 ribbon-silk and barnyard feather, the swindling output of 

 the catch-penny shopman whose sweat help do not know 

 upon my word the name or the purpose of the thing they 

 make. 



Any six of the following list will kill well enough for a 

 single day's pleasant fishing in any water at any time du- 

 ing the legal season: Dark Coachman, Gray and Green 

 Palmer, Ginger Palmer, Alder, Scarlet Ibis, Abbey, Imbrie, 

 Professor, Conroy, Reuben Wood, March Brown, Orvis, 

 White Miller, Coachman, Royal Coachman, Codun, 



