Fly-Fifliing. 15 



will at firft find it an awkward bufmefs, not only 

 from its novelty > but from the diftruft you will 

 naturally feel in yourfelf, in grappling with a diffi- 

 culty fo unneceflarily magnified in books you may 

 have read on the fubjecl:. But when you have 

 accomplimed one fly, and, ftill more, killed a trout 

 with it, there is little fear of your fucceeding ever 

 after to your heart's content. 



Now, many will tell you that a rough, unfightly 

 fly is as good for your purpofe, if not better, than 

 -the neateft that was ever made. I believe this to 

 be a complete fallacy. It is very true, that an 

 experienced hand, who has never tied a fly in his 

 life otherwife than in a rough manner, is a deadly 

 enemy to the finny race. But am I to be told 

 that he would not be equally deadly, if not more fo, 

 if his flies were tied in the neateft poffible man- 

 ner ? Becaufe you are directed to make fay a 

 palmer, (which, by the way, though called a fly, 

 is neither more nor lefs than a hairy caterpillar 

 that falls, we believe, curled up on the water, and 

 is thus reprefented on a hook,) are you to make a 

 point of winding the hackle fo irregularly, that the 

 fibres mould point different ways ? Is it not bet- 

 ter to try and imitate nature as clofely as poflible, 

 (alas ! how fadly do the moft fkilful of us fail in 



