FLY-FISHING. 295 
cleanest and most elegant and gentlemanly of all 
the methods of capturing trout. The angler who 
practises it is saved the trouble of working with 
worms, of catching, keeping alive, and salting min- 
nows, or searching the river’s bank for the natural 
insect. Armed with a light single-handed rod and a 
few flies he may wander from county to county, and 
kill trout wherever they are to be found. 
But besides being the most attractive and valuable, 
artificial fly-fishing is the most difficult branch of the 
angler’s art ; and this is another reason of the prefer- 
ence accorded toit, since there is more merit, and there- 
fore more pleasure, in excelling in what is difficult. 
But there is one great error in fly-fishing, as 
usually practised, and as recommended to be practised 
by books, and that is, that the angler “fishes down” 
stream, whereas he should “fish up.” 
We believe we are not beyond the mark in 
stating that ninety-nine anglers out of a hundred fish 
down with the. artificial fly; they never think of 
fishing in any other way, and never dream of atiri- 
buting their want of success to it. Yet we are pre- 
pared to prove, both in theory and practice, that this 
is the greatest reason of their want of success in clear 
waters. In all our angling excursions we have met 
only one or two amateurs, and a few professionals, 
who fished up stream with the fly, and used it in 
a really artistic manner. If the wind is blowing up, 
