regards his reputation will ever
kill a trout with anything but a fly. It requires some training on
the part of the trout to take to this method. The uncultivated,
unsophisticated trout in unfrequented waters prefers the bait; and the
rural people, whose sole object in going a-fishing appears to be to
catch fish, indulge them in their primitive taste for the worm. No
sportsman, however, will use anything but a fly, except he happens to be
alone.

While Luke launched my boat and arranged his seat in the stern, I
prepared my rod and line. The rod is a bamboo, weighing seven ounces,
which has to be spliced with a winding of silk thread every time it is
used. This is a tedious process; but, by fastening the joints in this
way, a uniform spring is secured in the rod. No one devoted to high
art would think of using a socket joint. My line was forty yards
of untwisted silk upon a multiplying reel. The "leader" (I am very
particular about my leaders) had been made to order from a domestic
animal with which I had been acquainted. The fisherman requires as good
a catgut as the violinist. The interior of the house cat, it is well
known, is exceedingly sensitive; but it may not be so well known that
the reason why some cats leave the room in distress when a piano-forte
is played is because the two instruments are not in the same key, and
the vibrations of the chords of the one are in discord with the catgut
of the other. On six feet of this superior article I fixed three
artificial flies,--a simple brown hackle, a gray body with scarlet
wings, and one of my own invention, which I thought would be new to the
most experienced fly-catcher. The trout-fly does not resemble any known
species of insect. It is a "conventionalized" creation, as we say of
ornamentation. The theory is that, fly-fishing being a high art, the fly
must not be a tame imitation of nature, but an artistic suggestion of
it. It requires an artist to construct one; and not every bungler
can take a bit of red flannel, a peacock's feather, a flash of tinsel
thread, a cock's plume, a section of a hen's wing, and fabricate a
tiny object that will not look like any fly, but still will suggest the
universal conventional fly.

I took my stand in the center of the tipsy boat; and Luke shoved off,
and slowly paddled towards some lily-pads, while I began casting,
unlimbering my tools, as it were. The fish had all disappeared. I
got out, perhaps, fifty feet of line, with no r