58 ARTIFICIAL FLY-FISHING. 



are swollen after rain, or as it is practised among 

 unwary fish, in Highland streams, and fly-fishing in 

 our much-fished southern streams when the waters 

 are clear, we draw the same distinction as Mr. 

 Stoddart does between worm-fishing in a coloured 

 water and a clear one ; and the number of fly-fishers 

 who meet with success under the circumstances just 

 mentioned is exceedingly limited. 



In trouting with the minnow, worm, or natural 

 fly, the angler has the real fish, worm, or insect, 

 with which to entice the trout, but in fly-fishing he 

 has, by means of a few feathers, to deceive the wary 

 keen-sighted fish, and make it believe that his imi- 

 tation is a natural fly either alive or dead. Any 

 one will at once see that this is the more difficult, 

 and that to prevail upon a trout to seize a reality 

 does not afford room for the exercise of so much 

 skill as to prevail upon the same trout to seize an 

 imitation. Hence fly-fishing, in the same condition 

 of water, requires more address than angling with the 

 worm, or any other known method ; and consequently, 

 fly-fishing in a clear low water is, beyond comparison, 

 the most difficult of all the branches of the angler's 

 art, and should therefore rank highest as sport. 



This, however, is not an art that can be learned 

 in a day, or so easily as some seem to imagine. A 

 beginner becomes enamoured of fly-fishing. For 

 six weeks he grinds at Walton and all the other 

 authorities upon the subject, and having equipped 

 himself with all the paraphernalia for waging a war 



