TROUT FISHING. 255 



Trout, at the end of a short line, which is called daping, will often- 

 times kill when all other plans fail-; shrimps will be found effective in 

 salt water creeks and river mouths, and in those sea bays which the 

 fish haunts when in its greatest perfection, and very frequently in the 

 same localities it will bite at a small white crab, a muscle, or the throat 

 with the two pectoral fins attached, of one of its own species. 



All of these, however, pale before the artificial fly, which is the most 

 legitimate, the most scientific, the most exciting, because most difficult, 

 and lastly, not leastly, the most killing, in nine waters of ten, of all 

 the methods used to capture him. 



There has long been a grand debate between fly-fishers, as to 

 whether those are the most killing flies accurately copied from nature, 

 or fancy flies similar to nothing in existence, composed of any gay and 

 taking colors. It was formerly the general belief that the first were 

 the most taking, and in the old books we find regular rules laid down, 

 and particular flies ordered for every particular month of the year. 

 But the former opinion has now been generally, and I think justly, dis- 

 carded by the best anglers, while the practice of such a regular 

 arrangement is now very generally exploded. 



It is a remarkable fact that for the most part the same flies are 

 the most killing in all waters, the world over, in Scotland, Ireland, 

 Norway, and in the waters of America; nor is there any fly found 

 more excellent for general use, or which possesses more ardent vota- 

 ries, than the red hackle, which has probably killed more and larger 

 fish than any that can be named. 



In America, Trout-flies are used of a much larger size, and that 

 more effectively than in Europe, and the small English fly is justly 

 less estimated in these western waters. The colors of the American 

 flies are likewise much brighter on the whole than is approved by 

 British anglers, and fish will not unfrequently here take a gaudy scarlet 

 ibis feather with a gold tinsel body, which a person who should-use in 

 Europe would not improperly be thought raving mad. 



The flies which I hold the best are the red hackle, the ginger haekle, 

 the black hackle, occasionally varied with bodies of gold or silver tin- 

 sel, the March-brown or dun-drake, the pale yellow dun and the blue 

 dun — both very killing flies — -the cow-dung fly, the stone fly, alder fly, 

 the green and gray drakes ; and for night and twilight fishing, any of 



