300 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART II. 



will not permit you so to do, and that you are constrained 

 to angle on the same side whereon you stand, you must 

 then stand on the very brink of the river, and cast your 

 fly to the utmost length of your rod and line, up or down 

 the river, as the gale serves. 



It only remains, touching your line, to enquire whether 

 your two hairs next to the hook are better twisted or open ? 

 And for that I should declare that I think the open way 

 .the better, because it makes less shew in the water, but 

 that I have found an inconvenience or two, or three, that 

 have made me almost weary of that way ; of which one is, 

 that, without dispute, they are not so strong open as 

 twisted ; ' another, that they are not, easily, to be fastened 

 of so exact an equal length in the arming that the one 

 will not cause the other to bag, by which means a man 

 has but one hair upon the matter to trust to; and the last 

 is, that these loose flying hairs are not only more apt to 

 catch upon every twig, or beat, they meet with, but more- 

 over, the hook, in falling upon the water, will, very often, 

 rebound and fly back betwixt the hairs, and there stick, 

 (which, in a rough water especially, is not presently to be 

 discerned by the angler,) so as the point of the hook shall 

 stand reversed; by which means your fly swims backward, 

 makes a much greater circle in the water, and till taken 

 home to you and set right, will never raise any fish, or, if 

 it should, I am sure, but by a very extraordinary chance, 

 can hit none.' 



Having done with both these ways of fishing at the 

 top, the length of your rod, and line, and all, I am next 

 to teach you how to make a fly ; and, afterwards, of what 



(1) ID the original, the words are twisted at open, contrary to what is, 

 evidently, from the connection, the Authoi's meaning : the Editor has therefore 

 transposed the words. 



(2) This and the other inconveniences mentioned in this paragraph, are effec- 

 tually avoided by the use of a fine grass, or gut, of a><out half a yard !ong, ne*t 

 the hook. See Notes on Chap. XXI. Part I. p. 28. 



