TO THE READER. 



from you in the few years we have fished together, and I look back with a 

 kind of regret that I did not have the benefit of your kindly teaching ear- 

 lier. Many a one who has the true love of angling in him, comes bo far 

 short of the enjoyment he could have, for want of willing and faithful 

 teaching at the commencement, from those whose experience and skill 

 are above his own. Some anglers do not think enough of their duties to 

 their juniors in this respect. I reckon among the chiefest of your qualities 

 as an angler, the sincere sympathy you have always manifested towards 

 any novice who showed that he had a love for the art, and your willingness 

 to teach to such what you knew. Why not manifest this on a more ex- 

 panded field, and speak through a book to all who are seeking knowledge 

 upon angling, and are disposed to avail themselves of your experience ? 



There is one department of the school for anglers in which I think you 

 are qualified to speak ex cathedra. I mean the mechanical; if you will 

 undertake to teach what you know upon this branch, you can enable an 

 angler, who has any aptitude for mechanism and a reasonable facility of 

 manipulation, to manufacture for himself, his own rod, flies, and tackle, of a 

 quality for service and effectiveness, which will not suffer in comparison 

 with those to be procured in any good tackle-store in the country. No one 

 has a better right than I to bear this testimony to your handicraft, for my^ 

 favorite fly-rod and book of flies are the product of your skill. 



We have a good many fishermen in this country, and too few anglers ; 

 we are apt to value more a glut than a quiet day's sport, where skill and 

 painstaking will reward us with a moderate sufficiency. Catching fish is 

 not necessarily angling, any more than daubing canvas with paint is paint- 

 ing. If you write, you could not help giving aid to the attainment of a 

 truer and juster perception of the delights and uses of angling ; and aid 

 your reader, if he has a sympathetic soul, in the attainment of that 

 " sweet content" which can be drawn from all the accessories of the art, 

 and the beauties of nature amid which it is practised. 



I say, therefore, write. The labor will not only pleasantly recall many 

 scenes of your^oiscatorial experience, and memories of the choice spirits 

 with whom you have taken your diversion, but will make you to be re- 

 membered with gratitude by those to whom your labor of love will bring 

 an innocent pleasure. 



Truly your friend and fellow-angler, J. 



Most of the engravings of fish in this book are from nature. The 

 marine species, found in the chapter on salt-water fishing, are reduced 



