I confess, no direction can be given to make a man of a dull capacity
able to make a fly well: and yet I know this, with a little practice,
will help an ingenious angler in a good degree. But to see a fly made by
an artist in that kind, is the best teaching to make it. And, then, an
ingenious angler may walk by the river, and mark what flies fall on the
water that day; and catch one of them, if he sees the Trouts leap at a
fly of that kind: and then having always hooks ready-hung with him, and
having a bag always with him, with bear's hair, or the hair of a brown
or sad-coloured heifer, hackles of a cock or capon, several coloured
silk and crewel to make the body of the fly, the feathers of a drake's
head, black or brown sheep's wool, or hog's wool, or hair, thread of
gold and of silver; silk of several colours, especially sad-coloured, to
make the fly's head: and there be also other coloured feathers, both of
little birds and of speckled fowl: I say, having those with him in a
bag, and trying to make a fly, though he miss at first, yet shall he at
last hit it better, even to such a perfection as none can well teach him.
And if he hit to make his fly right, and have the luck to hit, also,
where there is store of Trouts, a dark day, and a right wind, he will
catch such store of them, as will encourage him to grow more and more in
love with the art of fly-making.
Venator. But, my loving master, if any wind will not serve, then I wish
I were in Lapland, to buy a good wind of one of the honest witches, that
sell so many winds there, and so cheap.
Piscator. Marry, scholar, but I would not be there, nor indeed from
under this tree; for look how it begins to rain, and by the clouds, if I
mistake not, we shall presently have a smoking shower, and therefore sit
close; this sycamore-tree will shelter us: and I will tell you, as they
shall come into my mind, more observations of fly-fishing for a Trout.
But first for the wind: you are to take notice that of the winds the
south wind is said to be best. One observes, that
...when the wind is south,
It blows your bait into a fish's mouth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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