Trout Flies, Artificial and Natural 75 



that looks like food, whether it has the appearance of 

 an insect or something else. The more educated fish 

 of the more southern waters may make finer distinc- 

 tions. It is a vast subject, and as many authorities 

 may be found for almost any statement as for the 

 several pronunciations of the word ' Byzantine.' You 

 remember the scoffing English Angler who dyed his 

 dry flies blue and red and took a lot of fish with them, 

 to the scandal of the purists ! The charm of the whole 

 thing is precisely that there are no rules. It is like 

 style in writing English. Every man makes his own. 

 Whether it is more pleasing in the sight of Saint Izaak 

 to wait for a fish to begin feeding before casting over 

 him, or for a man to sally forth, and, by dint of 

 knowledge and patience and skill, actually make the 

 trout rise to his lure, what arrogant mortal shall 

 judge?" 



Robert Page Lincoln : " Perhaps I should have said 

 some wet flies are an imitation of no special object 

 connected with living things. In the list of wet flies 

 there are experimentations galore that will serve as 

 well as any of the standard regulation flies. I can sit 

 down and construct offhand a fly to be used as wet or 

 submerged that I feel sure I can use with as much 

 success as with the miller, gnat, or any other fly that is 

 no doubt much on the order of an imitation of the 

 natural. Perhaps in writing the article I was thinking 

 too deeply of the eccentric nondescripts that do not 

 imitate nature. Yet these nondercripts (flies tied 

 anyway to suit the fancy), yet having hackle wings, 

 etc., will get the fish; they are drawn in the water 

 gently back and forth, thus purporting to be some 

 insect drowning; yet I doubt very much if the fish 

 can tell what sort of a fly, living fly, it should be. I 



