Fly-Fishing' 29 



if you don't lose many by whipping them off or getting 

 them caught in a tree, and two are all I use for the 

 cast, though a cast of three flies is the favorite of many 

 fishermen. I amuse myself by presuming to have a 

 special list for each month, week, day, and hour, but 

 the extravagantly erratic notions of the trout forbid 

 my recommending it to brother rodmen. Trout that 

 show a preference for certain flies one day may the next 

 day favor entirely different patterns. Sometimes they 

 will take an imitation of the natural fly upon the 

 water and at other times, being gorged with the 

 natural insect, will only strike at some oddly colored 

 concoction of no resemblance to any living thing in 

 nature; this in play, or in anger, -and at other times 

 out of pure curiosity. An Angler doesn't need a great 

 number of flies if he knows just what fly the game is 

 taking. You can't very well determine this half a 

 hundred miles from the fishing ; so you take a variety 

 with you and experiment. The flies should be of the 

 best make and freshest quality, tied by a practical 

 hand some honest maker who is himself an Angler 

 not the cheap, dried-up, wall-decorative, bastard 

 butterflies of the ladies' dry-goods shop, that hybrid 

 mess of gaudy waste ribbon-silk and barnyard feather, 

 the swindling output of the catch-penny shopman 

 whose sweat help do not know upon my word the 

 name or the purpose of the thing they make. 



Any six of the following list will kill well enough for 

 a single day's pleasant fishing in any water at any 

 time during the legal season: Dark Coachman, Gray 

 and Green Palmer, Ginger Palmer, Alder, Scarlet 

 Ibis, Abbey, Imbrie, Professor, Conroy, Reuben 

 Wood, March Brown, Orvis, White Miller, Coachman, 

 Royal. Coachman, Codun, Brown and Red Palmer, 



