98 What flies to use. Chapt. vii. 



has to be brought into play, to make any thing of a bag 

 amongst good and wary trout, is sometimes very refined. 

 It is quite distinct from fly-fishing for salmon, and is a 

 much higher branch of the art; though there is an exult- 

 ant ruder joy certainly in the hand-to-hand fight with a 

 lordly salmon, when once you have got him on. But any 

 man who is a good trout fisherman, will readily fall into 

 salmon-fishing; though a master at salmon-fishing may 

 be but a rude trout fisherman. But both the real trout 

 fisherman, and the salmon tamer, will want to know what 

 can be done in India by their favorite style of fishing. 



Suppose we commence with the Mahseer fisher. I'll 

 be bound the very first question he asks will be an awk- 

 ward question ; he will want to know what fly to use for 

 Mahseer. This is a question that I have the greatest 

 hesitation about answering, for whichever I name I am 

 sure to be wrong, and that because there are as many 

 opinions on this point as there are salmon flies; and tack- 

 le shops have contrived to make them about as various 

 in their colors as French milliners have made the Paris 

 fashions. The principle at the bottom of all fishing is, 

 the presentation to the fish of a hook so concealed under 

 something which is his natural food, or which is so like 

 his natural food, that it is taken unsuspectingly in the 

 place of food. As no one knows what a salmon fly is 

 meant to represent, no one can well say what should be 

 its color, shape, and size. It is only surmised that it is 

 mistaken by the salmon for a small fish, a shrimp, or 

 some other monster unknown, but supposed to reside in 



