March 3, 1900.]' 
FOREST AND STREAM„ 
169 
go up there you will see Taylor, and have a chance to 
study a system of fly-fishing he has worked out — and that 
alone is worth the trip." Then he gave me a general de- 
scription of Mr. Taylor's method, which, so far as I could 
remember, was a distinct novelty, and I left for Dudley, 
but, as it happened, without the remotest notion of Mr. 
Taylor's personal appearance. Two days later I was 
working up stream with wet fly, a mile or so below 
Dudley's house, when a waving rod appeared over the 
bushes on a point some little distance above, its wielder 
evidently coming down the stream. Instantly I stopped 
fishing and took such cover as afforded behind some 
bushes overhanging the water, from which coign of van- 
tage I proposed to take a few lessons. Men familiar with 
a stream, as I presumed the approaching fisherman to be, 
almost always have learned, and, when they fish alone, 
put in practice certain wrinkles thej' have found useful 
on that particular water, which wrinkles they are by no 
means always ready to impart to the first asker. These 
wrinkles I am always keen to learn, not so much with the 
idea of adopting them myself, unless t^iey chance to fit 
in with the style of fishing I employ (and enjoy most), 
as because I would like to know, for the pleasure such 
knowledge brings, everything every fisherman knows, or 
thinks he knows, about the art and practice of angling. 
So, when it can be done, I observe first and ask afterward; 
and of my many observations on many streams, probably 
the most interesting of all was this one on the Prairie. 
If I had only known it, there was no need to play peek- 
a-boo in this case, for, when I stepped out, the fisherman, 
now not 20 yards above me, and on the same side of the 
stream, made no change in his fishing tactics. When he 
came to where I stood I said: "What sport, Mr. Taylor — 
for I presume you are Mr. Taylor, from Mr. Hough's 
description of your way of fishing?" Nor did the little 
man in the big straw hat deny it. He was very courteous, 
even under the heavy fire of questions abotit the water, 
the fish, and especially about his method of fishing, which 
he was good enough to explain and demonstrate, show- 
ing then and whenever I met him afterward a friendly 
willingness to satisfy the desire for information and fur- 
ther the sport of a brother angler — all of which was the 
more pleasant, because one does not too often meet 
fishermen of Mr. Taylor's generous candor. 
So I was fortunate enough to add to such a knowledge 
t)i the English system of dry-fishing as may have come 
from some years of experience and careful study, what is 
probably a very fair idea of Mr. Taylor's system. Com- 
paring these two systems, and noting their many points 
of absolute divergence, I cannot help feeling that to call 
Mr. Taylor's system "dry fly-fishing," as did Mr. Mather, 
or "semi-dry fly-fishing," as has Mr. Hough, is (i) an 
injustice to Mr. Taylor, who has, I believe, discovered or 
invented (Nemo to the contrary notwithstanding), or, at 
any rate, promulgated, a distinct and valuable novelty in 
fly-fishing: (2) a needless and confusing misapplication 
of a plirase which, by priority of adoption and j^ears of 
unquestioned use, means to every English and to a grow- 
ing number of American fishermen a system of fly-fishing 
almost wholly different to Mr. Taylor's in its technical 
details, and absolutely different in its fundamental hy- 
pothesis. With regard to dry fly-fishing, I speak by the^» 
card of my own experience, reinforced by thorough 
knowledge of Mr. Halford's standard works on the sub- 
ject, which are all on my desk as I write. With regard 
to the Tajdor System I speak always subject to correc- 
tion by Mr. Taylor himself. My sources of information 
I have already detailed. Moreover, I have from time to 
time, as the spirit moved' me, practiced the Taylor Sys- 
tem with such measure of success as leads me to believe 
I cannot have very grossly mistaken the precepts and 
examples of its originator. To compare, now, the two 
systems and to show how they differ. 
The fundamental hypothesis of dry fly-fishing is: Given 
a rising fish — i. e., a fish in the act of feeding on flies float- 
ing on the surface of the water. Mr. Halford, in the 
second edition of "Floating Flies and How to Dress 
Them," page IT7, says: "To define dry fly-fishing, I 
should describe it as presenting to the rising fish the best 
possible imitation of the insect on which he is feeding in 
its natural position." On page 118 he says: "The first 
point, viz., to find a fish rising at the winged insect, may 
not, at the first glance, appear difficult; but it is aston- 
ishing to how great a degree the success of the angler de- 
pends on his judgment in this particular respect." In 
"Dry fly-fishing in Theor}'- and Practice," revised edi- 
tion (1899), pages X03-4, after describing likely places in 
which to look for rising fish, Mr. Halford says: "And 
some of the cleverest fishermen occasionally float a dry 
fly on spec over the best looking of sitch places, if even 
they fail to see a si.gn of a rise, knowing that if a fish is 
there, it must be in a position and ready and likely to 
take advantage of any unexpected treat provided for it. 
It is, however, questionable whether fishing on spec is 
not a mistake on a dry fly water, unless a fish be seen in 
position. As it is successful only in a small proportion 
of cases and tends to make the fish shy, it should be 
avoided by the unselfish fisherman." One might go on 
indefinitelj'- with further quotations to the same purport, 
but I think my rendition of the fundamental hypothesis 
of dry fly-fishing is sufficiently established by those al- 
ready cited. 
The fundamental hypothesis of the Taylor System is: 
Given a fish either feeding on mid-water or bottom food, 
or not feeding at all, whose location is only approximately 
known, or is only suspected (all of which might be 
summed up as: Given a likely spot for a fish to be lying). 
Mr. Taylor would not, of course, hesitate to use his sys- 
tem on a rising fish, or on a fish which he actually saw 
at any given point in the water; but it is claimed for his 
system that all this is not essential to its success. Mr 
Taylor is especially successful at enticing a fish liying fai 
under a log jam, or an overhanging bank, or under bushes 
which touch the water; and he fishes such places with 
especial care, if they are so situated as to be likely tc 
harbor a trout. This, I must contend, makes his system 
fundamentally different to dry fly-fishing, and_ as radical 
a dift'erencp is notable in the manner of presenting the fly. 
In Mr. Halford's "Dry Fly-Fishing," before quoted, he 
savs, on page 132: "If the first throw over a rising- fish, 
before it has oaus^ht sight of the angler "or the reflected 
wave of his rod, is accurately and delicatelj'- made, and if 
the fly floats in its natural position, without drag or curl 
in the gut, you will probably rise, and possibly kill, the 
most highly educated trout or grayling in the clearest 
water, while the slightest mistake will as probably set the 
fish down for the next half hour." "Drag" means any 
(even the slightest) ripple made on the surface by the fly 
as it floats down. Drag is usually caused by some me- 
quality in the current attecting the cast or the line float- 
ing on it, and thus causing the fly to travel faster than or 
out of line with the direction of the water on which it 
floats, "Delicately" in the quotation means dropping the 
fly so lightly on the water that not the faintest suspicion 
of a ripple shall be made by its fall. Perfect delicacy and 
absence of drag as insisted throughout Mr. Halford's 
books as a sine qua non to success. I have caught Itchen 
trout, and so, probably, has Mr. Halford, when my fly 
had quite a perceptible drag on, but they have always been 
small fish, and even those very, very seldom. And I 
have once in a great while had Itchen trout rise to a; fly 
which was not delicately cast — generally during the even- 
ing rise at sedges, and generaly the fish came very short. 
Contrast this with the Taylor System, which I have heard 
both its originator and Mr. Hough call by the very apt 
name of "teazing."' Having selected tha.t spot in the 
stream which he knows or believes contains a fish, the 
Taylor Sj'stem practitioner lands his fly repeatedly, by 
successive casts made as quickly as may be, on the water 
in the fish's presumed or known vicinity, at the end of 
which prelitninary he finally casts his fly a little above 
and lets it go well down past the spot he has been pre- 
viously hitting. The number of the preliminary casts may 
vary from three or four to eight or nine. No human 
skill could attain in these prelitninary casts any thing like 
what Mr. Halford means by "delicacy," nor is it neces- 
sary. Mr. Taylor uses and advises an amount of force 
which causes a very decided spat on the water. The fly 
in the final cast of the Taylor System is not, and need not 
be, dry in the sense Mr. Halford uses the word. It may 
(but need not of necessity) "float'' in the dry fly sense, 
and its position (wings up, sideways or down) is of no 
moment. Mr. Halford warns against a "curl in the gut," 
and his warning against "drag" presupposes that nbt only 
the cast, but a good many yards of line as well are float- 
ing on the water. lit the Taylor System the fly alone 
should touch the water during the preliminary casts, 
though a few inches of gut do not: much matter; and in 
the final ca.st only the fly and the gut should touch the 
water, though a "little line as well will be by no means 
fatal to success. Mr. Taylor explains his preliminary 
casts as designed to attract the trout's attention to the 
fly, to rouse his curiosity so that he may desire to make 
a closer investigation of its nature and (or) to excite his 
anger, so that he may attack it — "I tease him," says Mr. 
Taylor. But the dry fly-fisherman's whole idea is, avoid 
anything in the nature of "teasing." The Taylor System 
works best with a very short line, but the dry fly-fisher- 
man does not want to get too close to his fish— 12 yards 
is the ideal distance, and 25 can be handily negotiated utj- 
der ordinary conditions. Mr. Taylor will stand up to his 
knees in the water and rise and kill a fish not 10 yards 
away from him, either directly across the stream, or even 
a little below where he stands. (His system will work 
equally well fished up, but, like the dry fly in this, it is 
hard to work straight down stream.) But "Diy Fly-Fish- 
ing," page 133, says: "Suppose the angler catches sight 
of a fish rising fairly well (selecting for choice one under 
his own bank), the' first problem is to get within throw- 
ing distance withottt betraying his presence. Starting at 
300 yards below, and keeping well back, so as not to 
scare other fish on your journey, crouch down as low as 
possible, and creep up, still in the crouching position, 
until within about 12 yards of the place." 
The two systems demand that only one fly shall be used 
at a time, but there is a vast deal of difference in the flies 
used — a difference in size, in color (but some few pat- 
terns are nearly identical), and in shape. A dry fly is 
made small to conform to the size of the natural insect 
(except in the case of the May fly, where both natural and 
artificial are rather large) ; it is made of such colored ma- 
terials as come closest to the tints of the natural it is in- 
tended to copy (except in a few such trout patterns as 
the governor and coachman, and such grayling flies as the 
tags and bumbles, which are "fancy" flies) ; and its shape 
is such that it will readily float, and, when floated in the 
proper position, will resemble the shape of the natural. 
Double, and sometimes treble, the ordinary amount of 
hackle is used, as hackle helps more than any other ma- 
lerial employed to make the fly float. When wings are 
used, each wing is made of two pieces of feather, to give 
it strength. The wings are mostly tied on so as to stand 
upright, and separated from one another at the top, which 
assists in "cocking" the fly (making it land wings up on 
the water), and gives the fly when floating a more lifelike 
look. The dry fly-fisherman begins by using the closest 
imitation he has of the fly on the water, mounting a fancy 
pattern in its stead only after several shades of the imita- 
ion have proved unsuccessful. 
The Taylor System calls for nothing more than such 
ordinary wet fly patterns as have been found to kill well. 
As is iisual with wet flies, both here, and, generally, in 
JSngland, these flies do not attempt to closely copy any 
natural insect in size, shape or color. Mr. Taylor, on 
beginning to fish a new stream, would either ask what 
flies had good local reputations, fished in the ordinary 
way, and mount one of these in a size suitable to the size 
and clearness of the stream and the probable size of the 
fish, or he would try several patterns he had found to 
kill well on other streams until he hit the right one. He 
kills all the fish he wants with a comparatively few flies — 
not, I think, over two dozen patterns in all; whereas, the 
average drj'- fly-fisherman carries with him to the river 
side from fifty to one hundred and fifty patterns and 
variants of patterns. Mr. Halford, in "Dry Fly Entomol- 
ogy," figures one hundred standard flies. 
I have tried to avoid any comparisons of merits between 
the Tavlor Svstem and the dry fly. because comparisons, 
crede Mrs. Malaprop, are always "odorous," and in this 
case neither necessary nor possible. I am a dry fly de- 
votee (Had you guessed it?), but I have killed fish in 
this country by the Taylor System when and where the 
dry flv had pulled up back of the flag, dead lame. I 
have fished the Taylor System in this country with suc- 
cess and hor<>: ir>. trv it aea-'n whi^n T trade the- Hnr-k pnn 
for the fly rod this year and hit the trail for Dudley's, but 
I honestly doubt if it would work on Test or Itchen. 
Each system is the better under conditions best suited 
to each, and just what those conditions are every fisher- 
man must find out for himself. I am glad I have both 
weapons in my angling battery — I shall be still more 
pleased if I have made out to your satisfaction the case 
I started to prove, and most pleased of all if you can 
secure the co-operation of your contributors to give Mr. 
Taylor the credit he deserves by teaching the angling 
public through your paper to call his discovery by his 
name — the Taylor System of fly-fishing. 
Silver Sedge. 
ANGLING NOTES, 
1 ^^li 
Frank Forester. 
The reference that I made to Frank Forester in a re- 
cent note in this column has caused my old friend Mr. 
Charles Hallock to write me a letter, which I have pleas- 
ure in quoting in its entirety, as it is a warm tribute to a 
man to whom we owe much, and one who is at times 
criticised, as I believe, unfairly, by modern sportsmen, 
because they do not appear to understand tully the condi- 
tions which existed when Herbert was at the zenith of 
his fame as a writer upon sport. Mr. Hallock's review 
of those conditions and his analysis of the man will be 
read with much interest: 
"Dear Cheney: I was very gl«ii to read your estimate 
of Frank Forester's (Henry William Herbert's) scientific 
work in Forest and Stream of Feb. 10. It was dispas- 
sionate and very just. As a sportsinan and naturalist, 
Herbert was an advanced writer and observer for his 
period; and those who criticise adversely have had the 
advantage of fifty years of added knowledge and oppor- 
tunity for comparative study. It is impossible for such 
to detract from the credit and honor which belong to him 
by right of having earned them, because they are uni- 
versally admitted. He was certainly popular at a time 
when the literature of sport and natural history in this 
country was in what might be called its transition state. 
He was fully up with the times. His proficiency in wood- 
craft was remarkable; his wing shooting was new and 
marvelous, and his scientific knowledge quite beyond the 
comprehension of those who had not trained or studied. 
But Herbert's English ideas and practice did not always 
meet and accord with American wants, as experience 
came in course of time to convince us. At the very hour 
when Herbert was at his zenith, and for the very reason 
that he had himself opened our eyes to the new educa- 
tion, our ideas began to expand. We came to think 
more, and contrive more, and invent .more for ourselves. 
.American practices and progress began to assume the 
impress of the natural character. We gradually drew 
out of the English school of sport, or adapted its teach- 
ings to our changed conditions; while our species began 
to differentiate and our fishes, birds and animals appeared 
more and more dissimilar in size, traits, plumage and 
pelage as we began to know and compare them. 
"So, in due season, we came to manufacture our own' 
guns and cartridges, and fishing rods and reels, and our 
own sportsmen, forsooth, as well as our sporting books 
and periodicals. Later, the Civil V/ar made us still more 
self-reliant and independent, and stronger in our muscles 
and our hardihood; and hence it has come to pass that 
the writings of Herbert, whom I, with others, once re- 
garded as the embellishment of high art in the field and 
on the stream, are practically obsolete; and if Cheney and 
Hallock, or any other literary or scientific mugwumps, 
seem to thoughtless critics to be prosaic, or unpatriotic, 
or ungrateful in laying him on the shelf, why, that is the 
'English of it,' and nothing more. 
"And this is why I agree with the progressive writer of 
fifty years later, when he says that: 
" 'Frank Forester is entitled to much credit for arous- 
ing interest in fishing and shooting in this country. He 
was a graceful and interesting writer, but, at times, inac- 
curate. He wrote according to his convictions from the 
best obtainable information of his day, and it is not for 
me to criticise him in the light of more recent investi- 
gations, for he was a pioneer iii a comparatively new 
field in this country, and had not the means which exist 
at this day to determine species, and information which 
came to him was not always reliable from a scientific point 
of view,' Charles Hallock." 
Ice Fish Tfafoogli the Ice. 
One evening last week I wrote a note about the ice fish 
of Lake Champlain, as the smelt is there called, saying 
that none had been taken, as the ice had not formed on 
that part of the lake where the fish are usuallycaught, and 
that they would not take the hook when fished for from 
a boat. The next morning after writing the note I was 
called suddenly to Lake Champlain, and spent Sunday at 
Port Henry. Friday the ice had frozen sufficiently hard 
for the fishermen to commence work on Saturday, and 
that evening there were ice fish to be had, and the next 
day m.y friend and host, Hon. Walter C. Witherbee, who, 
with local pride in the fish, insists that they are ice fish 
and not smelts, had served at his table smelts from a 
Boston market at one meal and ice fish from the lake at 
another. That the ice fish were immeasurably superior to 
the smelts goes without sajdng, for the first were green 
and fresh from the water the day before, and the last 
had been frozen and had come from Maine, perhaps, be- 
fore they came from Boston; but that the so-called iee 
fish ai^e more delicate and sweeter of flavor and other- 
wise superior to the smelts there can be but little doubt, 
and yet both are smelts, and identical in species. 
It is not difficult to explain why Lake Champlain ice 
fish are far better when cooked soon after they are taken 
from the watej, than smelts that have been frozen and 
shipped a long distance; but it is most difficult to ex- 
plain why the ice fish will not bite one day, when the 
fisherman fishes from a boat in open water, and, two days 
later, will bite when the same fisherman, with the same 
tackle, fishes through a hole in the ice. It is not at aJl 
likely that the ice fish appear in the water only when the 
ice forms, for there is good reason for knowing that they 
are there before ice forms; but all agree that they will 
not bite until the ice covers the surface of the water. 
In speaking of ice-fish fishing last week, I forgot to say 
that when the fish run iust under the ice in schools they 
will take a hook on which a bit of red flannel is tied. - 
A. N. Chenevs 
