THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 287 



NOVEMBER. 



The same flies that were taken in February are taken thi* 

 month also. 



DECEMBER. 



Few men angle with the fly this month, no more than they 

 do in January; but yet, if the weather be warm, (as I have 

 known it sometimes in my life to be, even in this cold country, 

 where it is least expected,) then a brown, that looks red in the 

 hand, and yellowish betwixt your eye and the sun, will both 

 raise and kill in a clear water and free from snow-broth : but, 

 at the best, it is hardly worth a man's labour. * 



And now, sir, I have done with fly-fishing, or angling at the 

 top, excepting, once more, to tell you, that of all these (and I 

 have named you a great many very killing flies) none are fit to 

 be compared with the drake and stone-fly, both for many and 

 very great fish ; and yet there are some days that are by no 

 means proper for the sport. And in a calm you shall not have 

 near so much sport, even with daping, as in a whistling gale of 

 wind, for two reasons, both because you are not so easily 

 discovered by the fish, and also because there are then but few 

 flies that can lie upon the water ; for where they have so much 

 choice, you may easily imagine they will not be so eager and 

 forward to rise at a bait, that both the shadow of your body, 

 and that of your rod, nay, of your very line, in a hot calm 

 day, will, in spite of your best caution, render suspected 

 to them : but even then, in swift streams, or by sitting down 

 patiently behind a willow bush, you shall do more execu- 

 tion than at almost any other time of the year, with any 

 other fly : though one may sometimes hit of a day when he shall 

 come home very well satisfied with sport with several other 



* Some, in making a fly, work it upon, and fasten it immediately, to the 

 hook-link, whether it be of gut, grass, or hair ; others whip on the shank 

 of the hook a stiff' hog's bristle bent into a loop : and concerning these 

 methods there are different opinions. 



I confess the latter, except for small flies, seems to me the more eligible 

 way : and it has this advantage, that it enables you to keep your flies in 

 excellent order ; to do which, string them, each species separately, through 

 the loops, upon a fine piece of catgut, of about seven inches long; and 

 string also thereon, through a large pinhole, a very small ticket of parch- 

 ment, with the name of the fly written on it : tie the catgut into a ring, 

 and lay them in round flat boxes, with paper between each ring. And 

 when you use them, having a neat loop at the lower end of your hook-link, 

 you may put them on and take them off at pleasure. 



In the other way, you are troubled with a great length of hook-link, 

 which, if you put even but few flies together, is sure to tangle, and occasion 

 great trouble and loss of time. And as to an objection which some make 

 to a loop, that the fish see it, and therefore will not take the fly, you may 

 be assured there is nothing in it. 



