150 A SCOTTISH FLY-FISHER 



to submit any scientific evidence in justification of my 

 choice. My preference, my affection, for the fly is pos- 

 sibly altogether sentimental ; I remember it gratefully 

 as the lure by which I first succeeded in deceiving the 

 shy and cautious trout. I cannot conscientiously affirm 

 that it is more fatally fascinating than other flies ; if in 

 my experience it seems to have proved specially allur- 

 ing, it may not be because of any merit of its own, but 

 because it has had larger opportunities. Other lures I 

 have had in intermittent use, but it has occupied a per- 

 manent position on my cast. They have come and gone ; 

 it goes on for ever. What it resembles I do not pretend 

 to know, but I have yet to see the water on which it 

 will not prove attractive. Armed with it alone, I have 

 attained success as great as, and sometimes greater than, 

 that of those still under the dominion of traditional belief. 

 If there is anything to criticise in Mr. Pennell's flies, 

 it is their size. Unless they are inaccurately figured in 

 the Badminton Library volume on angling, they are 

 unnecessarily large. There is no apparent reason why 

 the flies with which we fish the loch should be larger 

 than those designed for the river. Since there is no 

 essential difference between the two, since the loch is 

 but an expanded pool, the lure which proves enticing 

 on the one should not be without attraction on the 



