Foreword - Here then is “Practical Fly Fishing,”a companion book to my “Practical Bait Casting,”and like that little work this is offered mainly as a text book to help the novice through places where there is rocky bottom, rough water and other hard wading.

It will be noted that I have devoted more space, proportionately, to fly fishing for black bass than have other writers, for the following reasons: the more general distribution of the bass offers a far greater number of anglers an opportunity to take them on a fly rod; it is a phase of angling that is becoming amazingly popular; it is a subject that most angling writers have neglected and on which there is little definite data.

1. Historical - The Beginning. The beginning of the ancient and honorable art of taking fishes with an angle is lost in the dim, misty reaches of the past before men made a pictured or written record of events. Nearly all ancient peoples, however, had their quaint and curious fables on the origin of angling and many of these legends tell us that the art was handed down to men from the Gods which is, indeed, a reasonable supposition.

2. Tackle - Tackle is something that anglers use part of the time and talk about and tinker with all of the time. No man can say what the proper tackle is for any kind of fishing as every experienced angler is likely to have ideas of his own on that subject.

There are, however, certain conclusions that generations of skilled anglers have reached...

3. Tackle #2 - EARLY American rods were “spliced”and many British rods are now made that way. That is, the end of the joints or pieces are fashioned to fit snugly together and the joining is done by lashing with a piece of thong, wire or adhesive tape. The British have some strange, and to us almost primitive, ideas on ferrules.

4. Reels - The first mention I can find of a reel is in “Barker's Delight or Art of Angling “published in 1651. He says: "Within two foot of the bottom of the rod there was a hole made for to put in a wind, to turn with a barrell, to gather up his line and loose it at his pleasure."

5. Flies - The early history of trout flies has been touched upon in another chapter. Possibly the first fly used for bass fishing was the “bob “mentioned in a previous chapter  if you call that a fly. The flies used by the early Kentucky bass fishermen were either large trout flies or bass flies of their own tying.

6. Apparel - Perhaps a writer is getting “altogether too personal,”as the saying goes, in discussing the kind of underwear an angler should don when faring forth for fish. However, I feel duty bound to recommend underwear of wool, or of a goodly proportion of that material, for early or late fishing or when wading with or without waders.

7. Biological - IT is good luck to be on the good side of the man I that knows Fish,”said Walton. My purpose here is to tell something of the natural history of the fishes anglers woo so ardently. Later I will deal more specifically with the habits of the basses and trouts and their relation to that ever-interesting problem, “Fishermen's Luck."

8. Preparatory - If the “getting-in place “is not far from the water so much the better. If the angler must travel some distance to the stream or lake it is best not to wear the waders. Carry them and wear a pair of moccasins or tennis slippers on the feet which,

9. Casting - THE best way to learn how to cast a fly is to go a-fishing with some experienced fly fisherman and follow his instructions and example. Next best is to join a casting club and learn how from the “old hands “always found in such organizations and who are always glad to help a beginner.

10. Strategy - The ideal way to fish a bass stream, if its depth and bottom will permit, is to wade. Some one has said that Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Certainly then, wading the stream is the artist's way of fishing for Micropterus. It has all the charm of trout fishing and all of its thrills and seldom is so lonesome since many of our bass streams are in settled districts.

THE END