"Without a doubt, as you say. I know a lady," continued the Doctor, "who, as Walton says, 'has a fine hand,' and who superintends an extensive artificial fly establishment--and who has written the best book ever published on the subject of artificial flies--who personally inspects every fly turned out by her tyers. And, moreover, she varnishes the head of every fly herself, in order that not the least particle of shellac may touch the snell. Such careful supervision and honest work, to quote Walton again, 'like virtue, bring their own reward,'" and the Doctor resumed his casting with another fly. "Well, Doctor, I sympathize with you; but my snells are clear-quill and no varnish. I may throw off a minnow once in a while by a very long cast, but it is soon replaced, and costs nothing. And, speaking of casting, I observed that you made half a dozen casts to reach yonder rock but sixty feet away, while I placed my minnow, by a single cast, a hundred feet in the other direction. Moreover, I reel my line toward me through undisturbed water, while you whipped the entire distance by several preliminary casts." "That is necessarily true," answered the Doctor; "but while you must recover all of your line for a new cast, I can cast repeatedly with the extreme length of my line in any direction; so I think honors are easy on the question of casting." "But," persisted Shiner, "with my quadruple multiplying reel, it is only a matter of a few seconds to prepare for a new cast. Then again. I have better control of a hooked fish, and can give and take line much faster than you with your single-action click reel." "While I grant your reel has a great advantage in speed, I hold that a single-action click reel is all-sufficient to play and land a hooked fish. Your reel is intended particularly to make long initial casts, and it is admirably adapted for that especial purpose; but in playing a bass it has no advantage over a click reel; in fact, I prefer the latter for that purpose. Really, the engine of destruction to the hooked fish is the rod. Its constant strain and yielding resistance, even without a reel of any kind, will soon place him _hors de combat_." Golden Shiner was not slow to perceive the force of the Doctor's arguments and held his peace. In the meantime both anglers had succeeded in killing some half-dozen bass, the largest ones falling to the rod of the bait fisher, as is usually the case. The sun was now climbing toward the zenith, and the Doctor's flies seemed to have lost their attractiveness for the wary bass, while the Shiner, seeking deeper water, was still successful in his efforts. The day, however, was becoming uncomfortably warm. "You will admit, Doctor, that you must cast your flies early in the day or late in the afternoon to insure much success, while I can fish during the middle of the day in deeper water and still have a measure of reward, which I consider quite an advantage of bait over fly."