FOREST AND 
STREAM 
215 
Rules For Dry Fly Fishing 
A Few Directions Not Absolutely Guaranteed, But Which May Be of 
Assistance 
does not twist and kink the line; second, it 
keeps the frog up, natural, in the water. It is 
therefore, at all times, desirable that you should 
employ the swivel, unless your hooks, in the 
very nature of their makeup, get around this in¬ 
convenience. 
Figure 6 is the now famous weedless porker, 
and if you have not tried this hook with your 
pork rind you have missed a great deal of sport 
for the Porker is undeniably a winner. You 
may cast this bait into the thick weeds and the 
pads and it will come out without a weed adher¬ 
ing. Point number one scored. Its weed guard 
is ingenious to say the least. This guard is made 
of rubber, and underneath a wire spring holds 
it up. The fish hits it, and the easy give of the 
guard assures of the fish getting a good hold. 
Instantly the rubber and spring fly into place 
and double protection is given. Figures 7 and 
8 are the well-known U-B production. Their 
guards are exceptionally good, and they have an 
easy give; never high tensioned. Figure 8 is 
weighted to use for deeper fishing. You will 
note on these the well known swivel attachment 
—a good thing, as I have already noted. Figure 
9 portrays the harness hook, a very good hook 
in that, first, it keeps the frog consistently alive; 
second, by the very nature of its makeup it pro¬ 
tects the hooks from the weeds. It is a very 
good hook and may be cast up into the north¬ 
ern moss and the lily-pads without its becoming 
annexed to same. Figure II shows double hook 
combination, for use when fishing with minnows 
and it a very good hook indeed, and with two 
hooks to its credit the chances of making a cap¬ 
ture is greatly increased. Figures 12 and 13 are 
Jamison hooks; both of them are well protected 
against the weeds. Figure 12 shows the slide 
system; very good, in that if your bait is small 
the back hook may be shoved down to its right 
length. Both these hooks are weighted and may 
be used well enough for deep fishing. 
The value of pork rind as a bass attraction 
has long since been advocated. This pork rind 
may be purchased ready cut; or the angler may 
cut it himself. Part of the rind is left on, 
and it is cut in the shape of a frog, more 
or less. Simply speaking this is hooked on at 
the head and cast like a live frog. Strips, or 
bits of red flannel make an added attraction, 
used with the rind. The weedless porker is 
one of the best hooks for the purpose. 
BEAR COMES DOWN SUSQUEHANNA ON 
LOG. 
Hagerstown, Md.—A large black bear came 
down the Susquehanna River last 'week riding 
a log about three hundred yards from shore. 
He was seen by two employes of the Mantz’s 
planing mills, near Selisgrove, Pa. They 
thought at first it was a man but they dis¬ 
tinguished the features of bruin, when they got 
out their field glasses. 
The bear had some difficulty staying on the 
log. When a big cake of ice shoved up from the 
water and threatened to dislodge him, the men 
on the bank could see him strike viciously with 
his paw. Tossed by the churning waters, the 
bear was thrown from his foothold, but clung 
to the log with his front claws. 
It was rumored that the brute was stranded 
on Hoover’s or Byers’ Island. 
J. G. HAGER, 
D RY fly fishing in America will never reach 
the popularity it has achieved in Eng¬ 
land, for the reason particularly that “wet 
fly” fishing on this side of the ocean is 
satisfactory enough to suit the ordinary man, 
and also because the conditions here otherwise are 
not those prevailing abroad. But dry fly fishing 
is more than a fad, and since it represents the 
acme of angling skill, it will have many devotees. 
Reduced to a few words, dry fly fishing is not 
a mystery, nor is it difficult to achieve as an art 
if one will follow a few elementary rules. The 
rules are legion, but a few are all that will be 
found necessary. Here are a few hints, com¬ 
piled mostly from English sources, but they will 
answer American purposes, except that the up¬ 
stream and downstream fishing theory will not 
hold good as much in the United States and 
Canada, because there are no rapid dry fly 
streams in England. However, the,first English 
rule is as follows: 
1-—Never start to practice dry fly fishing down 
stream—you have all the ground to go over again 
when you start to fish up stream, and fish up 
stream you must if you wish to become a suc¬ 
cessful manipulator of the “floater.” 2—With 
the heavier line you will be surprised at first the 
extra amount of casting power you have—do not 
overdo it; let the rod do its work, and be it your 
business to direct and control the line. After a 
while you will find that your arm, the rod and 
line, and your eye work in unison; next you 
will discover that you have no thought for rod 
or line and only eyes for the fly and the fish— 
now you are getting on! but you are not an ex¬ 
pert until you can, as it were feel the fly at the 
end of your cast and put it in front of a fish in 
such a manner that even an epicurean trout can¬ 
not refuse it. 3—Always pick the line very care¬ 
fully off the water, or you will scare the fish 
equally as much as though you had made a splash 
when casting. 4—To dry the fly (and always 
dry it well) whisk it through the air a few 
times, i. e., make a few false casts; in this pro¬ 
cess be as careful as though you were really 
making a cast, it is grand practice. 5—Never let 
the fly alight upon the water until you are sure 
that it will settle down where intended! rather 
make another cast. 6—After a cast the line 
should extend itself straight out in front of you, 
but in the event of the reel line coiling or being 
drawn beneath the surface study it not; so long 
as the fly floats in the right direction let well 
alone. 7—Let the fly float well over and behind 
the fish before picking it off the water for a fresh 
cast; very frequently a fish will let the fly pass 
him, and then ultimately turn around and raven¬ 
ously rush at it. 8—Beyond all, when you go a 
dry fishing “study to be quiet.” 
Always watch the current; and cast in such a 
manner that the reel line causes as little drag 
upon the fly as possible, really it ought not to 
cause any drag; rest assured that if the artificial 
does not float down with the current in a like 
manner to the natural fly you have a poor chance 
of creeling a wary trout. 
Briefly, then, the art of dry fly fishing is to 
present a fly that floats—and floats perfectly—to 
the notice of a rising fish in such a manner that 
it is mistaken for the natural ephemera which 
is hatching out, and in the result is accepted as 
such by the fish. To lure Fontinalis successfully 
after this manner it is necessary that the angler 
should have skill; be very observant; have the 
patience of Job, and, beyond all, be properly 
.equipped for the task. 
As to equipment our British brethren would 
be scandalized if an angler attempted to use his 
ordinary wet fly outfit for dry fly angling. Still 
we in the United States are not so prone to go 
to the matter of certain dress for certain sport¬ 
ing occasions, and with a little change in tackle 
or lines, anybody can apply the ordinary fly out¬ 
fit to dry fly angling. Go to some good exclu¬ 
sive tackle house advertising in Forest and Stream 
tell them what you want, and they will fix 
you up in a new and interesting sport without 
asking you much for all that you require. 
