CHAPTER IX 



CONSIDERATIONS MORAL, TACTICAL, PSYCHO- 

 LOGICAL, AND INCIDENTAL 



OF FAITH. 



Among the many uncertainties which attend the 

 sport of fly-fishing, there is one thing that may be 

 laid down as certain, and that is that no consistent 

 measure of success attends a lure, whether wet, 

 dry, or semi-submerged, in which the angler has 

 not faith ; and it may be shrewdly suspected that 

 much of the ill-success which has attended the 

 use of the wet fly upon chalk streams in the past 

 is due to lack of confidence on the part of the 

 angler. It has been laid down so positively by 

 the high-priests of the dry fly that the wet fly has 

 no chance compared with it — at any rate, on 

 smooth water — and it has been so freely stated 

 that crack wet-fly anglers come down to the 

 chalk streams confident in their powers to make 

 an exhibition of chalk-stream fish, only to retire 

 defeated and converted, that it is little wonder 

 that the chalk-stream angler who tries the wet fly 

 does it half-heartedly ; and it is probable that the 



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