The headgear I like is a gray, soft felt hat of medium brim to protect my eyes in the sun and to sit upon in the shade.
The footwear may consist of waterproof ankle shoes attached to rubber or canvas trousers, or of a pair of light, close-fitting hip rubber boots. Some Anglers wear rubber waterproof combined trousers and stockings and any sort of well-soled shoes. In warm weather, I affect nothing beyond a pair of old shoes with holes cut in both sides to let the water run freely in and out, the holes not big enough to admit sand and pebbles.
The artificial flies are of many hundreds of patterns. I have a thousand or two, but half a hundred, of sizes four to six for the lakes and ponds, and six to fourteen for the small streams, are enough to select from during a season; two dozen are sufficient for a single trip, half a dozen will do to carry to the stream for a day,—if you don't lose many by whipping them off or getting them caught in a tree,—and two are all I use for the cast, though a cast of three flies is the favorite of many fishermen. I amuse myself by presuming to have a special list for each month, week, day, and hour, but the extravagantly erratic notions of the trout forbid my recommending it to brother rodmen. Trout that show a preference for certain flies one day may the next day favor entirely different patterns. Sometimes they will take an imitation of the natural fly upon the water and at other times, being gorged with the natural insect, will only strike at some oddly colored concoction of no resemblance to any living thing in nature; this in play, or in anger, and at other times out of pure curiosity. An Angler doesn't need a great number of flies—if he knows just what fly the game is taking. You can't very well determine this half a hundred miles from the fishing; so you take a variety with you and experiment. The flies should be of the best make and freshest quality, tied by a practical hand—some honest maker who is himself an Angler—not the cheap, dried-up, wall-decorative, bastard butterflies of the ladies' dry-goods shop, that hybrid mess of gaudy waste ribbon-silk and barnyard feather, the swindling output of the catch-penny shopman whose sweat help do not know—upon my word—the name or the purpose of the thing they make.
Any six of the following list will kill well enough for a single day's pleasant fishing in any water at any time during the legal season: Dark Coachman, Gray and Green Palmer, Ginger Palmer, Alder, Scarlet Ibis, Abbey, Imbrie, Professor, Conroy, Reuben Wood, March Brown, Orvis, White Miller, Coachman. Royal Coachman, Codun, Brown and Red Palmer, Brown Hen, Queen of the Water, King of the Water. Squires, Black Gnat, Grizzly King, Quaker.
I use, as a rule, dark colors in clear water, and on bright days and early in the season; lighter shades in dull water and on dark days, in the evening, and as the season grows warmer; but many Anglers philosophize just the reverse—use light colors for early season fishing and somber hues for midsummer play—hence the endless arguments and experiments described as one of the charms of the craft.
I prefer, as I have said, two flies on the leader, and my favorite of favorites for all times and all places is a cast made up of gnat-size pattern of dark-gray wing and pale-blue body, and another of a peculiar drab-cream shade.
In throwing or casting the fly I never "whip" or "flail" the rod, and I never cast with a long line when a short one will answer the purpose. Distance alone may count in a fly-casting contest, but in the wild stream a careful short cast is more effective than a clumsy long one.
I angle with my shadow behind me, and in casting the flies endeavor to allow only the flies to touch the water. The line frightens the game, and if a trout should take a fly on a loose, wavy line, he will not hook himself and he will blow the fly from his mouth before the Angler is able to hook him.
In learning to cast the fly, the young Angler should start with the leader alone, as I believe all fly-fishing is begun by old and young, and as he lifts the flies from the water after the forward cast to make the backward motion he should simultaneously draw from the reel a half-yard of line and allow time for the flies to complete the whole circuit back of him. In fly-fishing the cast is not made from the reel as in bait-casting; the line is drawn from the reel a half-yard at a time with the left hand. The line must fully straighten itself behind the Angler ere it can be sent out straight before him. The flies and at most only a little part of the leader should fall lightly upon the surface—as we imagine two insects, entangled in a delicate cobweb, might fall from a tree branch—and be drawn smartly but gently in little jerks a second or two in imitation of two tiny live-winged bugs fluttering in the water; and then, as the Angler steps slowly, firmly, but silently and softly in the current downstream, he should repeat the lifting of the flies, the drawing off of more line from the reel, and the circling backward cast that takes up the slack and gives the line its forward force. Thus he should continue, deftly placing the lure in every likely spot ahead of him in the center of the brook and along its moss-lined, flower-decked, rock-bound or grass-fringed banks.
The Angler is careful not to let the trout see him, see his shadow, or see the rod, and not to let this wisest, most watchful species of all the finny tribes hear him or feel the vibration of his body.