194 THE WAY 0F A TROUT WITH A FLY 



the delivery of our flies; but, like the eliminated fee in 

 the Edinburgh lawyer's corrected bill, it was a case of 

 " Man, we mayna' see him, but he's there." Hands ! 



ACCURACY AND DELICACY. 



In a fly-fishing career over which I can look back some 

 forty-three years I recall only two instances of anglers 

 who voluntarily abandoned fly fishing in favour of some 

 other amusement. One of these cases I cannot account 

 for. The other was due to the fact that, in the course 

 of the development of astonishing accuracy and power 

 of casting a long straight line, the man became with every 

 advance less and less able to catch trout, and his angling 

 days became a long series of bewildered disappointments. 

 It would appear that it is possible to have too much of a 

 good thing, and that accuracy in excess may be as disas- 

 trous as any other vice or virtue. For that reason, when 

 tempted to take lessons from Mr. Tilton, Mr. F. G. Shaw, 

 Mr. R. D. Hughes, or any other exponent of the high art 

 of casting, I have always said to myself: " No, no, my son. 

 Let well alone. You catch a trout now and then with 

 your amateur, anyhow, hugger-mugger style. If you took 

 lessons and acquired perfection you might be even as N. 

 and catch none, and eventually retire from the sport in 

 despair." That is a catastrophe I am not prepared to face. 



The accuracy which was N.'s bane was probably due to 

 the nature of his gear. Gifted with a wrist of exceptional 

 strength, he could handle a rod of corresponding power, 

 which again needed a very heavy line to develop its 

 capacity. The result was the propulsion of the fly with 

 mathematical accuracy to what it is, I believe, fashionable 

 to call its objective. A straight line, Euclid tells us, is 

 that which lies evenly between two points. But no line 

 remains straight for two seconds on running water. Result, 



