ETHICS OF THE WET FLY 129 



meaning that only the dry fly may be used on 

 chalk streams, while wet or dry fly may be legiti- 

 mately used on others, carries its own condemna- 

 tion in logic. 



Mr. F. M. Halford, with every desire to be abso- 

 lutely fair, has, I think, in Chapter II. of " Dry-Fly 

 Fishing in Theory and Practice," done more than 

 any other man to discredit the wet fly on chalk 

 streams, by the implications, first, that the principle 

 of the dry-fly method — viz., the casting of the fly to 

 a feeding fish in position — is not applicable to the 

 wet-fly method, and, secondly, that on the stillest 

 days, with the hottest sun and the clearest water, 

 the wet fly is utterly hopeless. On both these 

 points I respectfully join issue with him. 



On all that his book contains on the positive side 

 about the dry fly I am in practical agreement. 

 But if the reader considers the rods, the lines, 

 and the flies, that Mr. Halford recommends, he will 

 see that they are utterly unsuited to wet-fly fish- 

 ing, and it would not be surprising that no success 

 attends them when used for wet-fly work. But if 

 I am right — and I am — in asserting that, given 

 reasonably suitable gear, the wet fly may be cast 

 upstream in chalk streams to a feeding fish in 

 position (whether surface feeding or not is, I sub- 

 mit, irrelevant), and that on its day — and there are 

 many such in the season — it will kill fish alike in 

 the hottest, brightest, and stillest weather, and on 

 days and in places and conditions where the dry 



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