Waders, of course, are necessary. Whether wading pants, wading stockings, or ordinary sporting rubber boots are worn is more or less a personal matter generally dependent upon the conditions under which the fishing will be done. The wading stockings, worn with woolen socks and hobnailed wading shoes, are as a rule the most satisfactory equipment. A leader-box in which extra leaders may be carried between pads of dampened felt and a landing net are other requisites.
The sportsman who has fished only with the wet fly may rest assured that should he take up dry fly fishing he will discover a renewed interest in the sport of fly fishing for trout, which, perhaps, through custom, may have lost something of its former charm. Moreover, in dry fly fishing he will find a sport of such wide scope that, it is safe to say, he will never consider himself other than a beginner in the art. For the scientifically inclined sportsman--the man who chronically seeks to know the "reason why"--it is difficult to name any outdoor recreation which would prove more to his liking or more worthy of serious research and study in its various branches, particularly that dealing with the entomology of the trout stream.
In photographic work most people are perfectly willing to "follow the directions," trusting that the results will be good enough, and caring little for intimate knowledge of the scientific details of the various processes which produce the completed photograph. This, certainly, is not at all the state of mind with which to take up dry fly fishing, or, for that matter, angling of any sort. In fact, the dry fly man should be a student of causes as well as of effects, for the simple reason that only in comparatively rare instances can the desired effect be produced unless the angler knows the underlying cause and proceeds to utilize it practically. This is particularly true of the selection and manipulation of the floating fly and, in a lesser but quite considerable degree, of casting the fly.
Almost every book on angling contains a more or less understandable treatise on fly-casting, and it is only for the benefit of the virtual beginner at fly-fishing for trout, and further with a view to completeness and the emphasizing of certain points which even the old hand is prone to forget or possibly neglect through carelessness that the following brief explanation is incorporated here. Casting the floating fly differs little essentially from the manner of casting the sunken fly; in detail, however, the difference is very great.