FISHING WITH FLOATING FLIES

FISHING WITH
FLOATING FLIES

BY

SAMUEL G. CAMP

AUTHOR OF "FISHING KITS AND EQUIPMENT,"
"FINE ART OF FISHING," ETC

NEW YORK
OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY
MCMXIII

Copyright, 1913, by
OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY

All rights reserved

CONTENTS

FISHING WITH FLOATING FLIES

FISHING WITH
FLOATING FLIES

CHAPTER I

The Matter of Equipment

No man knows, or ever will know, the art of fly-fishing in its entirety, and the present writer is far from claiming omniscience in the matter. Wherefore the fact may well be emphasized that the following pages are not intended for the expert—the seasoned angler skilled in wet, dry, and mid-water fly-fishing—but, rather, for the beginner at the sport of fishing with floating flies and for the novice who may take up fly-fishing with the purpose of ultimately employing the dry fly. At the outset, before going into the details of the dry fly caster's equipment and methods, it would seem necessary to outline certain general phases of the subject with special reference to the enlightenment of the veritable beginner at dry or wet fly fishing, and also with regard to the present status of the sport of dry fly casting practiced upon American waters.

American dry fly fishing may be defined briefly as the art of displaying to the trout a single artificial fly floating upon the surface of the stream in the exact manner of the natural insect. Upon occasions, somewhat rare, indeed, but nevertheless of sufficient frequency to render the fact noteworthy, the American dry fly man casts consciously to a rising and feeding trout—the invariable custom of the English dry fly "purist." On the trout streams of this country, however, the orthodox manner of fishing the floating fly is to fish all the water as when wet fly casting.

In America, owing to the fact that the dry fly angler fishes the water and not the rise, wet and dry fly fishing are far more closely related than is the case in England where the orthodox sportsman stalks the trout, casting exclusively to a rising and feeding fish; from this it may be easily deduced that much of the following discussion on the subject of fishing with floating flies is—in the very nature of things must be—equally applicable to either dry or wet fly fishing.

Moreover, angling conditions are such in this country that the fly-fisherman to be consistently successful cannot rely solely upon either one method or the other—he should be passably expert with either the dry or the wet fly, employing one or the other as conditions warrant or the occasion renders imperative. Dry fly fishing conditions here and in England are quite dissimilar. The English dry fly specialist follows his sport, in general, upon the gin-clear, quiet chalk streams; slow, placid rivers, preserved waters artificially stocked with brown trout (Salmo fario), and hard-fished by the owners or lessees.

The open season is a long one, extending, taking an average, from early in the spring, about the first of March, to the first of October; and as a consequence of the steady and hard fishing the trout naturally become very shy and sophisticated. Owing to the placidity of the streams the rise of a trout is not difficult to detect, and it seems to pay best to cast to a single trout actually known to be on the rise and feeding rather than to fish all the water on the principle of chuck-and-chance-it.

On the other hand, the American fly-caster largely enjoys his sport upon the trout streams of the woods or wilderness; erratic rivers with current alternating between swift and slow, broken water and smooth, rapid and waterfall, deep pool and shallow riffle. While insect life is not, of course, absent, one can actually follow such a stream for days without observing the rise of a feeding trout, although, as noted above, sometimes a rising fish will, of course, be seen; but seldom will a sufficient number be observed to warrant the angler's relying exclusively upon casting to the rise.

That, indeed, upon the average trout stream of this country, the well-chosen and cleverly cast floating fly has its place has been amply