Fishing with Floating Flies

ter of

and mid-water fly-fishing-but, rather, for the beginner at the sport of fishing with floating flies and for the novice who may take up fly-fishing with the purpose of ultimately employing the dry fly. At the outset, before going into the details of the dry fly caster's equipment and

Upon occasions, somewhat rare, indeed, but nevertheless of sufficient frequency to render the fact noteworthy, the American dry fly man casts consciously to a rising and feeding trout-the inv

in England where the orthodox sportsman stalks the trout, casting exclusively to a rising and feeding fish; from this it may be easily deduced that much of the

e dry or the wet fly, employing one or the other as conditions warrant or the occasion renders imperative. Dry fly fishing conditions here and in England are quite dissimilar. The English dry fly specialis

teady and hard fishing the trout naturally become very shy and sophisticated. Owing to the placidity of the streams the rise of a trout is not difficult to detect, and

nd smooth, rapid and waterfall, deep pool and shallow riffle. While insect life is not, of course, absent, one can actually follow such a stream for days without observing the rise of a feeding tro

sh are both very abundant and totally uneducated, dry fly fishing would be in the nature of a farce-although doubtless successful in view of the fact that the wild trout of such a stream will rise to almost anything chucked almost an

much whipping and wading of the stream by all sorts and conditions of fishermen, good, bad, and indifferent, have rendered the trout wise in their generation, cannot well afford to overlook the possibilities of the floating fly. In such streams the trout only upon rare occasions are afforded the opportunity of seeing

ictly practical basis-that the assumption of an "holier than thou" relation by the dry fly enthusiast toward his brother of the wet fly, on the ground that dry fly fishing is more sportsmanlike, is, to say the least, somewhat illogical.

hat one should be familiar with the best there is in fishing tackle and know much about the habits of the trout and of stream-life in general. In a word, the cust

y fishing for trout should, it would seem, first become fairly adept with the wet fly before going on to the finer-drawn art of dry fly ca

uited to the sport under normal conditions, and also under the conditions as he finds them. He must familiarize himself by much actual stream experience with the habits of the trout-learn to read a t

hich the trout are feeding. In England this theory has always been very closely followed by expert fly-fishermen, although over there, as in this country, various fancy flies-not dressed to counterfeit any certain natural fly-have long been in successf

professional fly-tiers, Englishmen and Scotchmen, who, as a matter of course, after coming to this country, continued to dress the patterns with which they were familiar. A certain few of our most famous artificial flies are, indeed, of American invention-flies such as the Seth Green, Reuben Wood, Parmachenee Belle, Imbrie, Barrin

is fly is of English origin. In "Familiar Flies," by Mary Orvis Marbury-an invaluable book for the fly-fisherman-it is related that an American angler, fishing one day with a cast of three English flies, had particularly good luck with a certain one of the

at the fly was originally dressed after an imported model. Personally, I am sure that the Beaverkill is none other than the "silver sedge," a well-known English pattern

thin reasonable limits, of course), or, again, of the action imparted to the artificial fly as compared with its coloration, size, or form. Into matters of this sort it is needless to enter here. The practical, common-sense point of view would seem to be that neither the proper color nor the correct imitative action of the artificial

artificial flies are to be had dressed in imitation of the native insects common to our trout waters, it should be obvious that the dry fly caster must continue to rely upon artificials of English pattern or manufactur

series of artificial flies, dry and wet, dressed in imitation of the native insects common to our streams and upon which our trout are known to feed; until these are available we must adapt the means at hand to the end desired. In this connection, however, it should be noted that it is not strictly necessary for s

lightly across the current, and that between casts it is generally necessary to dry the fly by several false casts, that is, without allowing the fly to touch the water. To the fly-fisherman of any experience it should be very plain that a first-class fly-rod and a

f the natural fly under like circumstances. All of which sounds perhaps not so very difficult, but, in practice, the operation really has complications of which the tyro little dreams. It is true that a dry fly possesses a certain degree of buoyan

ment; the beginner, therefore, should be extremely careful in the selection of his tackle. The disappointments and diffic