CHAPTER XII 

 APOLOGIA 



Having read through the foregoing pages, I am 

 (indeed, I could hardly fail to be) conscious 

 that I have written dogmatically, that I have 

 used the first person singular with some freedom — 

 more freedom than I had supposed. But I am 

 not going to change it. What I had to say, 

 stretched over a period of years, has been too strong 

 for me. I wanted to elaborate a system, and all 

 I have done is to tell my personal experiences 

 in search of a system. If I have written positively, 

 I would not have it supposed that I claim to be 

 a master of angling, or that I do not incur by the 

 water-side my full share — perhaps more than my 

 full share — of mistakes, tangles, bungles, disasters. 

 But, for all that, I claim to be entitled to speak 

 positively of the things which I have tried and 

 tested for myself and know of my own knowledge. 

 No man can really know either these same things 

 or any other things by reading them in a book 

 or by accepting them upon any authority, whether 

 it be that of Mr. F. M. Halford or another. 



131 17 — 2 



