ities of acclimatization
are so great that, it seems probable, in time no river of the
civilized world capable of holding trout will be without them.
METHODS AND PRACTICE
Angling now divides itself into two main divisions, fishing in fresh
water and fishing in the sea. The two branches of the sport have much
in common, and sea-angling is really little more than an adaptation of
fresh-water methods to salt-water conditions. Therefore it will not
be necessary to deal with it at great length and it naturally comes in
the second place. Angling in fresh water is again divisible into
three principal parts, fishing on the surface, _i.e._ with the fly; in
mid-water, _i.e._ with a bait simulating the movements of a small fish
or with the small fish itself; and on the bottom with worms, paste or
one of the many other baits which experience has shown that fish will
take. With the premise that it is not intended here to go into the
minutiae of instruction which may more profitably be discovered in the
many works of reference cited at the end of this article, some account
of the subdivisions into which these three styles of fishing fall may
be given.
_Fresh-Water Fishing._
_Fly-fishing_.--Fly-fishing is the most modern of them, but it is
the most highly esteemed, principally because it is the method par
excellence of taking members of the most valuable sporting family
of fish, the _Salmonidae_. It may roughly be considered under three
heads, the use of the "wet" or sunk fly, of the "dry" or floating fly,
and of the natural insect. Of these the first is the most important,
for it covers the widest field and is the most universally practised.
There are few varieties of fish which may not either consistently or
occasionally be taken with the sunk fly in one of its two forms. The
large and gaudy bunch of feathers, silk and tinsel with which salmon,
very large trout, black bass and occasionally other predaceous
fish are taken is not, strictly speaking, a fly at all. It rather
represents, if anything, some small fish or subaqueous creature on
which the big fish is accustomed to feed and it may conveniently
receive the generic name of salmon-fly. The smaller lures, however,
which are used to catch smaller trout and other fish that habitually
feed on insect food are in most cases intended to represent that
food in one of its forms and are entitled to the name of "artificial
flies." The dry or floating fly is simply a developmen
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