Fishing with the Fly / Sketches by Lovers of the Art, with Illustrations of Standard Flies

By Charles F. Orvis and Others
Copyright 1883
“Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield.”—Pope.
“Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you. I confess my discourse is like to prove suitable to my recreation, calm and quiet. So much for the prologue of what I mean to say.”—Izaac Walton.
CONTENTS

FISHING WITH THE FLY.

By Charles Hallock
I suppose that all that can be instructively written of the salmon has already been said. The processes of natural and artificial propagation have become familiar to all who desire to learn; the secrets of their periodical migrations—their advents and their absences—have been fathomed from the depths of ocean; their form and beauty have been lined by the artist’s brush, and their flavor (in cans) is known to all the world where commerce spreads her wings. And yet, the subject always carries with it a perennial freshness and piquancy, which is renewed with each recurring spring, and enhanced by every utterance which attempts to make it vocal; just as the heavenly choirs repeat the anthem of the constructed universe intoned to the music of the assenting spheres! The enthusiasm which constantly invests it like a halo has not been dissipated or abated by the persistent pursuit of many centuries, albeit the sentiments of to-day are but the rehearsal of the original inspiration, and present knowledge the hereditary outcome of ancient germs.
All down the ages echo has answered echo, and the sounding forks have transmitted orally the accented annals wherever the lordly salmon swims.