ON^ RAPID STREAMS. 159 



Adlington hooks, made rough and gaudy. I went 

 to work (I need scarcely say that I did not fish 

 down stream or with a long line), and was delighted 

 and astonished to see the trout run at my big flies; 

 and that evening my brother fishermen were wrong, 

 though I am afraid not undeceived in their ideas 

 of my maggot-fishing. This day's sport led me 

 afterwards to try again, and the result of many 

 years' close observation has been to convince me 

 of my early follies, and teach me that as a general 

 rule a good gaudy fly without a maggot is as 

 destructive on a small rapid river as any fly with 

 a maggot, provided the fly be used in a proper 

 manner ; this my experience tells me is a general 

 rule, and under its guidance of late years I have 

 very seldom found it necessary or advantageous to 

 use the maggot on small rapid streams in low water 

 and bright weather. Generally I have had mag- 

 gots by me seldom have I used them., and I 

 might probably have just as well left them at home, 

 for any great advantage they ever proved to me. 

 This over-estimate of the value of the maggot I 

 speak of in a comparative sense ; I do not mean 

 to say that by experience I found the maggot 

 less killing, on the contrary, my power with it in- 

 creased but that I found I had undervalued the 

 power of the artificial fly. I had neglected it at a 

 time when I ought to have earnestly studied the 

 art of using it, and subsequently when 1 did so, 

 I learnt the relative importance of the art and 

 instrument. My flies were the same, the river 

 the same, but my art of using those self-same flies 



