205 



on such occasions were sure to raise several fish with 

 every new fly, that lost its virtues, however, before the 

 day was out. 



A simple arrangement for quickly changing the color 

 of a fly, especially with trout flies, which have not such 

 brilliantly colored wings as salmon flies, is to carry in the 

 fly book cards with various colored silks wound upon them. 

 There will be no diflBculty in having as many as thirty 

 varieties of shade because only a little is needed of each 

 and they may be placed side by side so that any hue may 

 be selected at once. It is a good plan to open the first 

 trout taken and find out from the contents of his stomach 

 the precise fiy on which he is feeding. Then if the 

 angler is without that kind he can make a tolerable 

 substitute by winding the proper shade of silk over 

 the body of any fly that he has, selecting suitable size 

 and wings as far as he can. It is the color of the body 

 that mainly distinguishes trout flies and the wings are of 

 less importance, being in nature little more than a dusky 

 membrane. 



Reels. — There is probably no better reel than the 

 ordinary click reel. It should have the handle set in the 

 plate and not on an arm around which the line will be 

 forever catching. For salmon fishing of course, the reel 

 mjist be larger and stronger than tor trout. The advan- 

 tage about the ordinary brass reel is, that it will not break, 

 if it falls even on rocks, a misfortune that is peculiarily 

 liable to happen in salmon fishing, in which the fish have 

 often to be followed along a dangerous and difficult shore. 

 It may get bent, but it can still be used. Th.e objections 

 to it are, that it keeps the line shut in between two plates, 

 so that it will not dry readily and may rot, and that it 

 does not take in the line rapidly. An open reel with a 

 large barrel, and made of gutta percha has come into 



