454 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 
stream or down, but he will soon find out by experience 
that the wind in his back is advantageous to him, and that 
he will scarcely succeed in any case in casting his fly in 
the face of a strong breeze. Beyond this, no rule will in 
all cases apply, and the fiy-fisher must use his own discre- 
tion, founded in great measure upon practical observation, 
as to the precise mode in which he will reach and fish 
particular parts of the water that he believes to be the 
resort of good trout. Indeed, it is useless to attempt 
instructing the tyro by theoretical lessons in the details of 
an art in which it is certain that nothing but practice can 
give any degree of proficiency. This is constantly shown 
even in the professed fly-fisher of two or three seasons’ ex- 
perience, who throws his fly with all the most approved 
motions, and is beforehand fully convinced that he is 
the equal of any angler, from Maine to Mississippi; 
but, when he sees fish after fish hooked and landed 
by some older hand following in his wake, and using the 
very same fly, with perhaps an inferior rod, he is obliged 
to confess that theory must succumb to delicacy of hand- 
ling, and that fly-fishing is a practical art, rather than a 
science attainable in the closet. The various degrees of 
success mark the difference between the master and the 
scholar, and show that a lifetime may be spent in acquir- 
ing the power of deceiving this wary fish, and yet there 
may be room for improvement; hence it is that so many 
men of talent have been devotees to the fly-rod, and while 
they have enjoyed the beauties of nature displayed to 
them during the prosecution of their sport, they have 
nevertheless been much more deeply engaged in acquiring 
