Fly Fishing | by Sir Edward Grey
Numerous pens have been engaged during the last few years on the subject of fly fishing, but the editors feel sure that the volume by Sir Edward Grey, with which the Haddon Library opens, will not be regarded by anglers as superfluous. Gardens and gardening, too, are to be treated of, and will again receive the attention of one who has never yet failed to enrich English literature when he has taken up his pen to write on the well-loved theme.
| Title | Fly Fishing |
| Author | Sir Edward Grey |
| Publisher | J. M. Dent & Co. |
| Year | 1899 |
| Copyright | 1899, J. M. Dent & Co. |
| Amazon | Fly Fishing |
General Preface- IN bringing the Haddon Library to the notice of the public, an explanation from me of its scope and aims would seem necessary. Probably more literature in relation to British sport, natural history, a...
- Chapter I. Introductory
- IT would be delightful to write about pleasures, if by doing so one could impart them to others. Many of us, if we had this gift, would no doubt take the world by storm to-morrow, with an account of t...
- Introductory. Part 2
- Walton took a wide view of the pleasures of angling; he was of too sensitive a nature to neglect what was to be seen and heard around him, and the object of Piscator is at least as much to teach his s...
- Introductory. Part 3
- We probably wish our recreation to be not only apart from our work, but in contrast to it, and those who labour with their brain indoors seek for exercise and open air, use for the body as well as fre...
- Introductory. Part 4
- It is the plain indiscriminating desire for success which leads us to the second stage in angling, that of taking the pains and trouble necessary to acquire skill. In early years we are content to cat...
- Introductory. Part 5
- People talk sometimes as if a sort of still slow patience were the great quality exercised by angling. It ought much more properly to be called self-control, and if another quality essential to succes...
- Chapter II. Dry, Fly Fishing
- IT is with much diffidence that any attempt can be made to describe the delights of dry fly fishing. Those who know and practise the art best are the epicures amongst anglers; they have carried both t...
- Dry, Fly Fishing. Part 2
- If this forecast of the time of the rise proves correct, and there is at first neither fly nor fish to be seen, the angler has at any rate the satisfaction of feeling that the day is all before him, a...
- Dry, Fly Fishing. Part 3
- In the second case the result was different. I was wading in a shallow where I could see the trout, which, as it turned out, was never to be mine. It was a light-coloured fish feeding actively and rec...
- Dry, Fly Fishing. Part 4
- If our work will let us escape on Friday evening, it is luxury; but even if we belong only to those in the middle state of happiness, who work till midnight or later on Friday, and can have the whole ...
- Dry, Fly Fishing. Part 5
- After two o'clock on this June day the angler will probably find that it becomes increasingly difficult to find a rising trout, and that when one is found, it is not nearly so ready to take his fly. B...
- Dry, Fly Fishing. Part 6
- Very pleasant the evening is after a successful day in hot, bright weather in June. Let us suppose that the angler has caught some three brace of trout in the day, and a brace and a half in the evenin...
- Chapter III. Dry, Fly Fishing. Part 7
- Anglers who desire to learn the art of dry fly fishing should read and study such a book as Dry Fly Fishing in Theory and Practice, by Mr. F. M. Halford. I do not for a moment pretend to be able to ...
- Dry, Fly Fishing. Part 8
- 1 The delicate and difficult device of thus fishing down stream is often described by anglers as drifting the dry fly. It is often the only way, especially in strong, rapid waters such as the Derb...
- Dry, Fly Fishing. Part 9
- To hook a trout which has risen to a floating fly, it is necessary to strike, for the simple reason that a fish cannot be hooked on a slack line, and that it is impossible to float a fly naturally wit...
- Dry, Fly Fishing. Part 10
- Weeds are the great and universal difficulty with chalk stream trout, and there are times when large fish break the gut by carrying the line right through patches of them, and so arranging matters tha...
- Dry, Fly Fishing. Part 11
- On any day in May and June there will almost certainly be some sort of a rise at some time of the day, but rises are of all sorts. Some of the best seeming rises are the most disappointing, and some o...
- Dry, Fly Fishing. Part 12
- In some cases perhaps this is so because the water is not fished enough, but in others it is simply because the water itself is more suited to produce quantity than quality of trout. An angler who wis...
- Chapter IV. Winchester
- MANY things are taught at public schools, but Winchester is probably the only school at which the most scientific and highly developed form of angling can be learnt. The art was not taught at Winchest...
- Winchester. Part 2
- During those early days of the season hardly any other anglers were out, and I saw nothing hooked; but as time went on, one or two local anglers, who understood the Winchester trout, began to fish, an...
- Winchester. Part 3
- To enable our school fishing at Winchester to be understood, it is necessary to give some account of hours, for the management of time was most important. As a rule school arrangements did not set us ...
- Chapter V. Trout Fishing With The Wet Fly
- THE enthusiasm which was the result of dry-fly fishing led at one time, amongst those who were fortunate enough to be able to enjoy it, to a tendency to disparage the older art of using the wet fly. A...
- Trout Fishing With The Wet Fly. Part 2
- It follows from what has been said that every inch of water should be fished with as straight a line as possible; in still water this is not difficult; in fishing across and down stream it is easy, ex...
- Trout Fishing With The Wet Fly. Part 3
- In April the water will probably be low rather than high, for February and March are on the average the driest months of the year, and April is not generally a month of heavy rains. On the other hand,...
- Trout Fishing With The Wet Fly. Part 4
- After the beginning of July the angler may have many a pleasant day's fly fishing though his basket will not often be heavy. The natural flies continue to hatch out in July and August, and the trout f...
- Trout Fishing With The Wet Fly. Part 5
- Much has been written about the proper method of fishing with wet flies, whether it is best to fish up stream or down stream. It is easier to argue in favour of the up stream method, and if two men of...
- Chapter VI. Sea Trout Fishing
- ALL through May and June the keenest angler may well be content to stay by a good dry fly river, for he is having there the best and most interesting fishing that this part of the season can give him....
- Sea Trout Fishing. Part 2
- Let us suppose that he has been for some days on a good sea trout river towards the end of July, that there has been no rain for some weeks, and that he has wandered about for a few days catching hard...
- Sea Trout Fishing. Part 3
- The rise of a sea trout is generally bold and even fierce. Sometimes it takes the fly with a silent boil, or even without any sign on the surface if the fly is deeply sunk. The typical rise, however, ...
- Sea Trout Fishing. Part 4
- For this sort of fishing in a small river, I like to use a single-handed rod, but one that is very strong. One not only has more sport with the fish hooked on a rod like this, but one fishes more deli...
- Sea Trout Fishing. Part 5
- The lochs were less satisfactory. There was no boat upon them, the bottom was of soft peat, and the wading peculiar. After wading a few steps into the water, one's feet sank into the soft bottom, mass...
- Sea Trout Fishing. Part 6
- Migratory salmonidae are generally divided into three species—salmo salar, salmo eriox, and salmo trutta. Of salmo eriox, the bull trout, I have had no experience. It has the reputation of being a pow...
- Chapter VII. Salmon Fishing
- SALMON fishing is the greatest of all the sports, that can be had in fresh water. I say fresh water, for I have had no experience of Tarpon fishing, and though the written accounts of it convince me...
- Salmon Fishing. Part 2
- If we could watch salmon more in the water, as we can so often watch trout when feeding, we should learn much that would be of great practical advantage in angling, both in working the fly and in choo...
- Salmon Fishing. Part 3
- I have never been very successful in salmon fishing. Another angler once caught over fifty fresh run salmon with fly in six consecutive days in March on a river on which I was fishing at the same time...
- Salmon Fishing. Part 4
- In May, and in dry seasons often in April, salmon angling is apt to be spoilt by want of water, and this difficulty remains till autumn, though each flood ought to bring up fresh fish, and the angler ...
- Salmon Fishing. Part 5
- Salmon fishing is a sport in which the angler need not grudge any amount of success either to himself or his friends, if they fish with a fly. In any fair-sized river, the number of salmon which can b...
- Chapter VIII. Tackle
- Anglers have sought out many inventions in tackle. Life is not long enough for us to be able to use more than a small portion of these, and it seems to me that the object of writing about tackle to-da...
- 4. Black And Orange Spider
- I use this alone on a bright day and in low clear water, tied on a No. 4 Pennell-eyed Limerick hook, and have found it in these conditions attractive to sea trout and sometimes irresistible to herling...
- 4. Black And Orange Spider. Part 2
- On one other occasion my reel line broke. I had hooked a salmon, which ran up into some water full of notorious sunken rocks, amongst which the line got fast. I put on a strain in every possible direc...
- 4. Black And Orange Spider. Part 3
- After fifteen years' experience of single-handed split cane rods, I should without hesitation claim for mine that they have kept their straightness and lasted better than greenheart would have done un...
- Chapter IX. Experiments In Stocking
- I HAVE never had any opportunity of stocking water on a large scale, but I have made experiments in two ponds, and the results may be of use to others who have similar pieces of water, and may perhaps...
- Chapter X. Some Memories Of Early Days
- EVERY angler must have some account to give of the beginning of his keenness for angling. Some of us remember it as the great excitement of our boyhood, whilst others have only discovered its existenc...
- Some Memories Of Early Days. Part 2
- Burn trout are wayward little things. Sometimes they take a worm greedily on the brightest days in low clear water, rushing to it directly it falls into the pool, or seizing it as it travels down the ...
- Some Memories Of Early Days. Part 3
- Very wonderful is the perspective of childhood, which can make a small burn seem greater than rivers in after life. There was one burn which i knew intimately from its source to the sea. Much of the u...
- Some Memories Of Early Days. Part 4
- These were the triumphs of luck, but they came at an age when youth, not from conceit, but from sheer gladness and simplicity, does not discriminate between luck and skill. The first temptation to bec...
- Some Memories Of Early Days. Part 5
- I was warned that at this season of the year, when the water was low, I must not expect to catch any of these fish, but I cared nothing for warnings. The trout were there, and were rising, and though ...
