FISHING. 



SALMON AND TROUT. 



ON HOOKS, TACKLE, AND FISHING GEAR. 



'Ars est celare artem.' 



The saying goes ' A good workman never finds fault with his 

 tools,' but if by this it be meant that he can work as well with 

 bad tools as with good, or produce equally satisfactory results, 

 then it says little for the sagacity of those who made the 

 proverb. It is specially in the more artistic descriptions of 

 work that the importance of good tools is apparent. The fly- 

 fisher is a workman in a highly artistic school, and, if he is 

 to do his work thoroughly well, his tools, that is, his tackle — 

 rods, hooks, hues, &c. &c. — must be of the very best. 



There are still some 'happy hunting grounds' scattered 

 throughout the British Islands on which ' the shadow of the 

 rod or glitter of the bait' has but seldom fallen, — small 

 mountain lochs and moorland streams wherein fish are so 

 guileless and simple in their habits that they will rise with 

 delightful confidingness at the most rudimentary specimen of 

 the artificial fly, offered to them in the least attractive manner. 

 Such spots I have met with where it took weeks to impress 

 upon its trout the melancholy fact that ' men were deceivers 

 ever,' and where day after day the veriest bungler might fill his 



I. B 



