Now rods ought to be put in order in September, when
the fishing closes, or else in April, when it opens. To varnish a rod
in December proves that one possesses either a dilatory or a childishly
anticipatory mind. But before uncorking the varnish bottle, it occurred
to me to examine a dog-eared, water-stained fly-book, to guard against
the ravages of possible moths. This interlude proved fatal to the
varnishing. A half hour went happily by in rearranging the flies. Then,
with a fisherman's lack of sequence, as I picked out here and there a
plain snell-hook from the gaudy feathered ones, I said to myself with a
generous glow at the heart: "Fly-fishing has had enough sacred poets
celebrating it already. Is n't there a good deal to be said, after all,
for fishing with a worm?"

Could there be a more illogical proceeding? And here follows the
treatise,--a Defense of Results, an Apology for Opportunism,--conceived
in agreeable procrastination, devoted to the praise of the
inconsequential angleworm, and dedicated to a childish memory of a
whistling carpenter and his fat dog.

Let us face the worst at the very beginning. It shall be a shameless
example of fishing under conditions that make the fly a mockery. Take
the Taylor Brook, "between the roads," on the headwaters of the
Lamoille. The place is a jungle. The swamp maples and cedars were
felled a generation ago, and the tops were trimmed into the brook. The
alders and moosewood are higher than your head; on every tiny knoll the
fir balsams have gained a footing, and creep down, impenetrable, to the
edge of the water. In the open spaces the Joe-Pye weed swarms. In two
minutes After leaving the upper road you have scared a mink or a
rabbit, and you have probably lost the brook. Listen! It is only a
gurgle here, droning along, smooth and dark, under the tangle of
cedar-tops and the shadow of the balsams. Follow the sound cautiously.
There, beyond the Joe-Pye weed, and between the stump and the cedar-top,
is a hand's breadth of black water. Fly-casting is impossible in this
maze of dead and living branches. Shorten your line to two feet, or even
less, bait your hook with a worm, and drop it gingerly into that
gurgling crevice of water. Before it has sunk six inches, if there is
not one of those black-backed, orange-bellied, Taylor Brook trout
fighting with it, something is wrong with your worm or with you. For
the trout are always there, sheltered by the brushwood that makes