ETHICS OF THE WET FLY 127 



It is said the wet-fly man's game is a duffer's 

 game, which needs neither knowledge nor any 

 skill beyond enough to cast a long line down- 

 stream or across and down; that it leads to a 

 raking of the water, often with two or three flies ; 

 that it leads to the pricking and scaring of many 

 fish, to the catching of many undersized trout, 

 and to the undue disturbance of long stretches of 

 water, to the detriment of the nerves of the fish 

 and the sport of other anglers. All this I am 

 quite willing to accept and to eliminate from the 

 legitimate all wet-fly fishing which could come 

 under this description. 



What is left to the wet-fly angler ? I venture 

 to say a mighty pretty, delicate, and delightful 

 art which resembles dry-fly fishing in that the 

 fly is cast upstream or across, to individual fish, 

 or to places where it is reasonable to expect that 

 a fish of suitable proportions may be found, and 

 differs from dry-fly fishing only in the amount of 

 material used in the dressing of the fly, in the 

 force with which that fly is cast, and in the extreme 

 subtlety of the indications frequently attending 

 the taking of the fly by the fish, compared to which 

 there is a painful obviousness in the taking of the 

 dry fly. Add to this that it provides means for 

 the circumventing of bulgers and feeders on larvae, 

 that it furnishes sport on those numerous occasions 

 when trout are in position and probably feeding 

 under water without ever breaking the surface, 



