PRACTICAL FLY FISHING 



HISTORICAL 



FISHING IN GENERAL AND FLY FISHING IN 

 PARTICULAR 



THE Beginning. The beginning of the ancient 

 and honorable art of taking fishes with an angle 

 is lost in the dim, misty reaches of the past 

 before men made a pictured or written record of 

 events. Nearly all ancient peoples, however, had their 

 quaint and curious fables on the origin of angling and 

 many of these legends tell us that the art was handed 

 down to men from the Gods which is, indeed, a reason- 

 able supposition. 



The earliest authentic mention of angling we find 

 in the Book of Job, written about 1500 B.C. The 

 Lord asks him.: " Canst thou draw out Leviathan 

 with a hook?" Fish hooks are also mentioned by 

 Amos (IV, 2) written 787 B.C., and the prophecies 

 of Isaiah (XIX, 8), written 760 B.C., sound a warn- 

 ing to unrighteous fishermen : " The fishers shall 

 mourn and all they that cast angles into the brooks 

 shall lament and they that spread nets on the waters 

 shall languish." 



ii 



