THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART II. 



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 then 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 execution than at almost 

 any other time of the year with any other fly : though one 

 may sometimes hit of a day when we shall come home 

 very well satisfied with sport with several other flies. But 

 with these two, the Green-Drake and the Stone-fly, I do 

 verily believe, I could, some days in my life, had I not 

 been weary of slaughter, have loaden a lusty boy ; and 

 have sometimes, I do honestly assure you, given over 

 upon the mere account of satiety of sport ; which will be 

 no hard matter to believe, when I likewise assure you, 

 that with this very fly, I have, in this very river that runs 

 by us, in three or four hours, taken thirty, five-and-thirty, 

 and forty of the best Trouts in the river. What shame 

 and pity is it then, that such a river should be destroyed 

 by the basest sort of people, by those unlawful ways of 

 fire and netting in the night, and of damming, groping, 

 spearing, hanging, and hooking by day ; which are now 

 grown so common, that though we have very good laws 



