TO THE READER. n 



not usually known to every angler ; and I shall leave gleanings 

 and observations enough to be made out of the experience of all 

 that love and practise this recreation, to which I shall encourage 

 them. For angling may be said to be so like the mathematics, 

 that it can never be fully learnt ; at least not so fully, but that 

 theTe^vvuTTHlTISe'more new experiments left for the trial of 

 other men that succeed us. 



But Ijthink all jthat love this game may here learn someth i n g 

 that may be worth their money, if they be not poor and needy 

 men ; and in case they be, I then wish them to forbear to buy 

 it, for I write, not to get money, but for pleasure, and this Dis- 

 course boasts of no more; for I hate to promise much and 

 deceive the reader. 



And however it proves to him, yet I am sure I have found a 

 high content in the search and conference of what is here 

 offered to the reader's view and censure ; I wish him as much in 

 the perusal of it, and so I might here take my leave ; but will 

 stay a little and tell him, that whereas it is said by many that in 

 fly-fishing for a trout the angler must observe his twelve several 

 flies for the twelve months of the year : I say, he that follows 

 that rule shall be as sure to catch fish,and be as wise, as he 

 that makes hay by the fair days in an almanac, and no surer; 

 for those very flies that use to appear about and on the water 

 in one month of the year, may the following year come almost a 

 month sooner or later, as the same year proves colder or hotter ; 

 and yet, in the following Discourse, I have set down the twelve 

 flies that are in reputation with many anglers, and they may 

 serve to give him some observations concerning them. And he 

 may note, that there are in Wales and other countries, peculiar 

 flies, proper to the particular place or country ; and doubtless 

 unless a man makes a fly to counterfeit that very fly in that 

 place, he is like to lose his labour, or much of it ; but for the 

 generality, three or four flies, neat and rightly made, and not 

 too big, serve for a trout in most rivers all the summer. And 

 winter fly-fishing it is as useful as an almanac out of date ! 

 And of these, because as no man is born an artist, so no man is 

 born an angler, I thought fiTt^Tve~triee this notice. 



