Chapter II: Foreword

Rising from the perusal of “Dry-Fly Fishing in Theory and Practice,” on its publication by Mr. F. M. Halford in 1889, I think I was at one with most anglers of the day in feeling that the last word had been written on the art of chalk-stream fishing—so sane, so clear, so comprehensive, is it; so just and so in accord with one’s own experience. Twenty years have gone by since then without my having had either occasion or inclination to go back at all upon this view of that, the greatest work, in my opinion, which has ever seen the light on the subject of angling for trout and grayling; and it is still, as regards that side of the subject with which it deals, all that I then believed it. But one result of the triumph of the dry fly, of which that work was the crown and consummation, was the obliteration from the minds of men, in much less than a generation, of all the wet-fly lore which had served many generations of chalk-stream anglers well. The effect was stunning, hypnotic, submerging; and in these days, if one excepts a few eccentrics who have been nurtured on the wet fly on other waters, and have little experience of chalk streams, one would find few with any notion that anything but the dry fly could be effectively used upon Hampshire rivers, or that the wet fly was ever used there. I was for years myself under the spell, and it is the purpose of the ensuing pages to tell, for the benefit of the angling community, by what processes, by what stages, I have been led into a sustained effort to recover for this generation, and to transmute into forms suited to the modern conditions of sport on the chalk stream, the old wet-fly art, to be used as a supplement to, and in no sense to supplant or rival, the beautiful art of which Mr. F. M. Halford is the prophet. How far my effort has been successful I must leave my readers to judge. I myself feel that in making it I have widened my angling horizon, and that I have added enormously to the interest and charm of my angling days as well as to my chances of success, and that, too, by the use of no methods which the most rigid purist could rightly condemn, but by a difficult, delicate, fascinating, and entirely legitimate form of the art, well worthy of the naturalist sportsman.

In the course of my too rare excursions to the river-side, I have elaborated some devices, methods of attack and handling, which I have found of service, some applicable to wet-fly, some to dry-fly fishing, or to both. In the hope that these may be of interest or service, I have included papers upon them.

In conclusion I should like to express my gratitude to the proprietors of the _Field_, for permission to reprint a number of papers contributed by me to that journal over the signature “Seaforth and Soforth,” which come within the scope of the work; and to Mr. H. T. Sheringham, for his invaluable advice and assistance in the arrangement of these papers.

G. E. M. SKUES.

CONTENTS

PAGE
NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION vii
FOREWORD ix

CHAPTER
I. OF THE BEGINNING OF THINGS 1
OF THE INQUIRING MIND 1

II. SUBAQUEOUS HAPPENINGS IN NATURE 8
OF THE DROWNING OF DUNS AND OTHER INSECTS 8
OF THE STAGES IN A RISE OF DUNS 9

III. SUBAQUEOUS HAPPENINGS IN ART 14
OF MEDICINE FOR BULGERS 14
OF UNDER-WATER TAKING, ITS INDICATIONS, AND THE TIME
TO STRIKE 17
OF ROUGH WATER AND GREY-BROWN SHADOW 20

IV. SUPPLEMENTARY IN THE MATTER OF FLIES 24
OF WET-FLY DRESSINGS FOR CHALK STREAMS 24
OF THE IMPORTANCE OF COLOUR OF TYING SILK 29
OF THE IMITATION OF NYMPHS, ETC. 30

V. SPECIAL CONDITIONS AND WET-FLY SOLUTIONS 36
NERVES 36
OF THE TROUT OF GLASSY GLIDES 38
OF THE WET FLY IN POOLS, BAYS, AND EDDIES 41
OF THE JUDICIOUS USE OF THE MOON 44
OF THE WET-FLY OIL TIP 45
OF GENERALSHIP AND THE WET FLY 47
A POTTED TROUT, AND ONE OTHER 49
OF TWO SATURDAY AFTERNOONS 54

VI. UNCLASSIFIED 57
OF HOVERING 57
OF THE PORPOISE ROLL 59

VII. SUNDRY CONSIDERATIONS 60
OF THE RELATION OF PATTERN TO POSITION 60
OF THE USE OF SPINNERS 63
OF GENERAL FEEDERS 67
ON ATTENTION TO CASUAL FEEDERS 70
OF THE FREQUENTATION OF DITCHES 73
OF THE NEGOTIATION OF TAILERS 76
OF THE FASCINATION OF BRIDGES 78

VIII. MAINLY TACTICAL 81
OF THE DELIBERATE DRAG 81
IN THE GLASS EDGE 84
OF THE CROSS-COUNTRY CAST 87
WHAT TUSSOCKS ARE FOR 89
OF THE ALLEGED MARCH BROWN 91
OF GENERAL FLIES 92

IX. CONSIDERATIONS MORAL, TACTICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, AND
INCIDENTAL 95
OF FAITH 95
OF THE BANK OF VANTAGE 98
OF COURAGE AND THE JEOPARDIZING OF TUPPENCE
HA’PENNY 103
OF IMPOSSIBLE PLACES 105
OF THE USE OF THE LANDING-NET 109
OF THE WEEDING TROUT 115
INCIDENTALLY OF THE LIGHT ROD ON CHALK STREAMS 117
AND OF WET-FLY CASTING 120

X. FRANKLY IRRELEVANT 122
A DRY FLY MEMORY 122

XI. ETHICS OF THE WET FLY 126

XII. APOLOGIA 131

MINOR TACTICS OF THE
CHALK STREAM,
AND KINDRED STUDIES