FLY-FISHING. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Throwing the Line and Flies Making a Cast Humouring the 

 Flies How to Fish a Stream How to Strike, Hook, Play, anc 

 Land a Fish. 



To become a good fly-fisher requires address, skill, nicety 

 of touch, and, above all, practice. Experience alone can 

 make the youthful angler proficient in the highest branch 

 of the angler's art. He has to capture the swiftest of the 

 finny tribes with the finest and frailest of material, in the 

 clearest of crystal streams. Other sports may be more 

 exciting than artificial fly-fishing, but there are none which 

 requires more adroitness, more intelligence, a quicker eye, 

 or a lighter hand. While the brain must be quick to 

 apprehend, the senses the most delicate, the body must be 

 robust, the limbs active, and the eye watchful. You see 

 the fly-fisher with his slender rod, gracefully waving hia 

 line over his head, and the flics drop into the stream with 

 the lightness of a gossamer ; the line does not even ripple 

 the water, and the flies dance on the surface. Anxiously 

 the angler watches the miniature insects formed so cnn 



