The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-04-29
DRY Fly AND WET Fly.
They Are Styles OF Fishing At Present the
Dry Files Have II.

Dry fly fishing has asslredly been exalted
to a wonderful art by its best opponents.
but at the same time it has caused a great
deal of nonsense to be talked.
One might fancy, to hear some of these
gentlemen. that fishing up a rapid stream
with a wet fly was beneath their notice.
One longs to see them at it. says a writer in
Mdcmildn's, especially where thick timber
complexities the situation.
/ have more than once stumbled on one
OF the smaller fry of this persuasion, seated
in despair beside a stream, with half his
stock Of flies in the surrounding trees.
Dry fly fishing has it's special elias of water
peculiarly adapted to the art. 1t has given
the slow moving ones a wholly different
value from of old and a fas ~'ination that
cannot truly be said to have formerly dis
tinguished most of them.
Writing in 1857, S.ewart remarks that not
one in a hundred anglers fish up stream.
This is strange hearing now. Probably
the heavier water of those days encouraged
what is a pernicious habit in any but a big
river. My own recollectiors a decade
later both in the west of England and the
border country are that one flshed which
ever way the wind favored, but in very
clear water always up.
l am inclined to think that few men are
entirely comfortable and successful at fish
ing rapid water up stream who have not ac-
quired the knack in youth. There is so much
instinct and intuition about it, not only as
to where fish will be lying under different
circumstances of water and weather, but
ia the %"nicking' Of that large proportion
who do not show thems slves When they
come at the fly, and only give notice of their
intent by various subtle sensations that are
altogether indies ribable.
Then, again, more often than not, as I
have already sid, overhanginR foliage
is a serious factor to be encountered. not
only in the actual casing but in the striking
at short rising fish.
1t must be easier for the adult novice to
acquire some modest Success at dry fly
fishing than in the vagler and mora tor
menting art Of fishing up broken waters.
nor is it everybody that can wade a rocky
bottom with facility and comfort. This
rising fish shows the dry fly man exactly
where to cast; he knows precisely what he
has got to do, and he can at least further
his skill by practising on his own lawn.
stewart believed that the way in which a
fiv was put to a trout and put into him
was nearly all the battle, so long as the fly
was unremarkable, naturally and, above
all, splringlv dressed. Sizes within reason
and still less shades he set small store by,
except SO far as thev were adapted to the
trout's vision in various states of water.
The imitation Of the natural insect Of the
moment except perhaps a drake, he laughed
to scorn: and yet no one killed more fish
than he did season after season and very
few so many. Black or red hackles, then
and doubtless still known as spiders in
southern Scotland, dressed very scantily
with a plain silk wrapping for BODY, were his
favorites, with two or three winged flies
and as many other varieties Of haokles.
When the March brown was thick on the
water he would USUALLY put one on; but he