Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 January 1885 — The First Fly Fisher. [ARTICLE]

The First Fly Fisher.

Tbe first and indeed tha only writer amongst the ancieuts, so far as we know, who makes mention of fiahing wr;h the artificial fly is Aelianos, who lived in the third century. In the fiftieth book of his history he says: .‘The Macedonians, who live on the banks of the River Astrams, which flows midway between Berea snd Thessalonia, are in the habit of catching a particular fish in that river by means of a fly called hippurus; a very singular inset it is—bold and troublesome like all its kind, in size a hornet, marked like a wasp, and buzzing like a bee.” From his account of these fish they must have been trout, and he exactly describes the method in which a trout feeds at present, "when one of .them sees the fly floating down toward him, he approaches, swimming gently under the water, fearing to movd the surface les* its prey should be scared. Then drawing nearer underneath, he snc-k* the fiv, as a wolf snatches a sheep from the fold, or an eagle a goose from, the farm-yard, and havihg done so disappears under the ripple.” *