THE basses: fres h-w ater and marine 



caster. He calmly takes his book of flies, lying 

 snugly in his pocket, and soon replaces or adjusts 

 a new cast, right in mid-stream, and freely begins 

 anew his pleasant pastime. It is quite true that 

 bass are not always in the hiunor to take a fly, — 

 the same may be said of salmon and trout, — but 

 the ardent fly-caster usually has patience in his 

 make-up to wait till the fish will rise to his feathery 

 lure, and this often happens sooner than is ex- 

 pected, if some coaxing is brought into play. 



No ingenious American has yet attempted — at 

 least to the writer's knowledge — to make flies by 

 machinery; so that all are tied by hand, and well- 

 made flies are necessarily costly. All the makers, 

 especially well-known and trustworthy houses, can 

 supply and will furnish the very best, if paid for 

 the extra care in tying. No comparison can pos- 

 sibly be made between the ten-cent bass fly of the 

 bargain stores and those made by such firms as 

 Abbey & Imbrie, Mills, and Charles F, Orvis, the 

 latter firm having made the sheet of colored flies 

 for this volume. The original patterns are copied 

 exactly, and each firm has its own choice set of pat- 

 terns, besides the standard kind. 



Experienced anglers often say that bass wiU 

 jump at anything when they are in the humor; 

 but the trouble is that they are rarely in the humor 

 to jump at any old rag that is cast before them, and 

 the only way to put them in a humor to be always 



138 



