Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: as possible, for the nearer you approach to nature the greater in all cases is your chance of success. And here, in concluding this chapter on Fly Fishing, let me advise every angler to make or learn to make his own flies; by so doing he will never be at a loss for a fly to suit the fickle Trout. Really, many of the flies from the tackle shops look neat and gaudy enough, but like Hodge's razors, are they not made to sell ? When a man makes a fly for himself, he makes, I take it, to kill. THE ANGLING MONTHS. March.—During this month the fells and hills of north Yorkshire and Durham are frequently capped with snow, which, dissolved by the increasing power of the sun, fills rivers and brooks with what is usually termed snow broth, which, accompanied with chilling east or north-east winds, effectually retard angling operations. Trout however keep gradually improving in condition, and from the middle to the end of the month will, under the influence of a kindly atmosphere, rise tolerably well at the fly during the middle of the clay. The worm is also taken in brooks after rain. But as a fly fishing month, March seldom affords, in the north of England at least, any good or certain diversion. In the face however of all obstacles, some really keen hands will wet their lines, and if the weather is at all genial, may succeed in taking a few fish. The advent of our annual visitor, the swallow, indicates, or nearly so, when fly fishing commences with some certainty of sport; you will observe but few flies on the water, (and consequently no inducement to fish to be on the look out), before those great insect killers appear. The principal flies for the month, are the March Brown, the Blue Dun,f and small Black, or Light coloured flies. Some anglers fish with four flies upon a st...