DAYS ON THE NEPIGON. 



It is a certainty that to place the minnow 

 on the water and manipulate it properly re- 

 quires all the adroitness, experience and cir- 

 cumspection the fly-fisherman employs in pre- 

 senting his lures, and the same careful atten- 

 tion in bringing the fish to creel; and my 

 own observation induces the belief that half 

 of fly-fishing approximates very closely to 

 bait-fishing, with the fly as bait; and as to my 

 individual efforts along that line, I confess 

 there is little question regarding it. 



Be not bound by precedent or tradition 

 when you go a-fishing; only play fair. It is a 

 much threshed-out subject, with a lively 

 chorus of contradictions and divergent opin- 

 ions; and while as difficult of satisfactory 

 solution as the mooted question of up-, down- 

 or across-stream fishing, the several methods 

 each and all have the merit of being "simply 

 immense." It is frequently a matter of pre- 

 tense, and often not the most insuperable pro- 

 ceeding for the fly-fisherman to overcome 

 when the larder needs replenishing. Then he 



reveals an elastic conscience, according scant 

 26 



