48 ON ARTIFICIAL FLIES. 



CHAPTER III. 



ON ARTIFICIAL FLIES. 



OF late years a new doctrine in my opinion a 

 totally wrong one has been sent forth about 

 artificial flies. Some Scotch writers were the first 

 promulgates of it, and they have carried it to 

 ridiculous extravagance. They positively main- 

 tain that there is no likeness between the natural 

 fly and the artificial one, and that when natural 

 flies are on the water the angler will be more suc- 

 cessful by using artificial flies as widely different 

 from them in shape, colour, &c., as may be. A 

 nondescript artificial fly will succeed better, they 

 say, than a bad resemblance, and every attempt at 

 imitation, in their opinion, produces at the best 

 but a bad resemblance. These angling here- 

 tics contend that fish rising at a natural fly im- 

 mediately detect, by comparison of course, the bad 

 imitation, and refuse to rise at it, whereas they 

 will rise at some outlandish artificial that differs,, 

 more than chalk does from Cheshire cheese, from 

 the living fly on the water. They say, that when 

 they go fly-fishing they catch some of those flies 

 that are on the water, and fish with artificial flies 

 totally different from them, and invariably meet 

 with more success than if they used so-called, as 



