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If he's speared, half the time the spear slips and he struggles off badly wounded; and if the spear goes through him, he is flung out on the bank to bleed to death. Even if he escapes, he is sure to come to a pitiful end some day perish by starvation when he gets too old to catch his food or be torn to pieces by a seal, an otter, or a fish-hawk. Fly-fishing really offers him "
The mountains towered green and grey above the palely shining sea in which they stood; the air was full of the sound of streams and the scent of wild flowers; the thin mist had in it something of the dazzle of the sunlight that was close behind it. Little Mrs. Spicer pulled down her veil: even after a fortnight's fly-fishing she still retained some regard for her complexion.
It seemed to me, as we went on our way, that there could hardly be a more wholesome and pleasant summer-life for well-bred young women than this, or two amusements more innocent and sensible than photography and fly-fishing. It must be confessed that the horse-yacht as a vehicle of travel is not remarkable in point of speed. Three miles an hour is not a very rapid rate of motion.
But the trout was saved, though my friend's buttons and suspenders suffered. We learned a new trick in fly-fishing here, worth disclosing. It was not one day in four that the trout would take the fly on the surface. When the south wind was blowing and the clouds threatened rain, they would at times, notably about three o'clock, rise handsomely.
"I have nothing to say against trout," said Daddy, "but I feel like crying for a salmon as a baby cries for the moon. There is not much in life outside of salmon and Wall Street. Even when I have to go to California I troll a little on Puget Sound, but it doesn't come up to fly-fishing." I left them, deeply engaged in this absorbing subject.
"Ha! ha!" said the Vicar; "and yet he gave ten shillings for a snipe. And he's hand-and-glove with every poacher in the parish." "The snipe was a new species, sir," said the Doctor indignantly; "and if I do employ the hunters to collect for me, I see no inconsistency in that. But I consider this fly-fishing mania just of a piece with your IDIOTIC, I repeat it, IDIOTIC institution of fox-hunting.
This is certainly an odd way of catching fish, but it is often a very efficacious method. The above methods, together with those of trolling and fly-fishing, are those most commonly employed by trappers and hunters generally, and we commend them to the amateur. We give, on page 120, a unique device for the capture of fish, which might also be found useful.
The history of one of the ablest contributors to this journal, who wrote some most charming articles on fly-fishing and other kindred topics, under the signature of 'Ephemera' though he was said never to have thrown a fly in his life is a very sad one. His name was Fitzgerald, a man of good family and connections, married to a lady with £1,200 a year, and living in a good house at the West End.
"He says the water's full of 'em." "Of course it is." "Sile," said his father, "don't throw away your time on fly-fishing. Use bait, and pull 'em right in. They'll bite." "I'm going to spoon for 'em. Can't find any bait." "Never mind, jedge," said Pine. "I've seen trout in some of these mountain streams jump for a bare hook quick as it tetched the water.
Don't you think that fly-fishing is something of a piscatorial immorality?" "Not in the least," answered Willibert, warming to his work, "it is a legitimate appeal, not to the trout's lower instinct, his mere physical hunger, but to his curiosity, his sense of beauty, his desire for knowledge.
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