208 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART n. 



betwixt the hairs, and there stick (which, in a rough water 

 especially, is not presently to be discerned by the angler), so as 

 the point of the hook shall stand reversed ; by which means your 

 fly swims backward, makes a much greater circle in the water, 

 and till taken home to you and set right, will never raise any 

 fish, or, if it should, I am sure, but by a very extraordinary 

 chance, can hit none. 



Having done with both these ways of fishing at the top, the 

 length of your rod, and line and all, I am next to teach you how 

 to make a fly; and afterwards of what dubbing you are to make 

 the several flies I shall hereafter name to you. 



In making a fly then, which is not a hackle or palmer-fly (for 

 of those, and their several kinds, we shall have occasion to speak 

 every month in the year), you are first to hold your hook fast 

 betwixt the fore-finger and thumb of your left hand, with the 

 back of the shank upwards, and the point towards your finger's 

 ends; then take a strong small silk, of the colour of the fly you 

 intend to make, wax it well with wax of the same colour too (to 

 which end you are always, by the way, to h~ ve wax of all colours 

 about you), and draw it betwixt your finger and thumb, to the 

 head of the shank, and then whip it twice or thrice about the 

 bare hook, which you must know is done, both to prevent 

 slipping, and also that the shank of the hook may not cut 

 the hairs of your towght, which sometimes it will otherwise 

 do: which being done, take your line, and draw it likewise 

 betwixt your finger and thumb, holding the hook so fast as 

 only to suffer it to pass by, until you have the knot of your 

 towght almost to the middle of the shank of your hook, on the 

 inside of it ; then whip your silk twice or thrice about both hook 

 and line, as hard as the strength of the silk will permit ; which 

 being done, strip the feather for the wings proportionable to the 

 bigness of your fly, placing that side downwards which grew 

 uppermost before, upon the back of the hook, leaving so much 

 only as to serve for the length of the wing of the point of the 

 plume, lying reversed from the end of the shank upwards; 

 then whip your silk twice or thrice about the root-end of the 

 feather, hook, and towght; which being done, clip off the root- 



