LETTERS TO A 
 SALMON FISHEKS 
 
 SONS 
 
 <BY 
 
 A.H.CHAYTOR
 
 LETTERS TO 
 A SALMON FISHER'S SONS
 
 LETTERS TO 
 A SALMON FISHER'S 
 
 SONS 
 
 BY A. H. GHAYTOR 
 
 WITH DIAGRAMS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 1910
 
 TO 
 
 DREWETT ORMONDE DREWETT 
 A JUST MAN AND A GREAT SALMON FISHER 
 
 NOW IN THE LAND OF SILENCE 
 IN MEMORY OF UNNUMBERED KINDNESSES 
 
 . . . feriuntque summos fulgura monies 
 
 a 2 
 
 2088276
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TO MY BOYS 
 
 MY DEAR SONS, DREWETT AND KIT, 
 
 If in these matter-of-fact days there be any 
 stars that still preside over our destinies, then 
 you and I, my boys, must, I think, have been 
 born under the sign Pisces, ' the fish with glitter- 
 ing scales ' unless, indeed, Aquarius, the water- 
 carrier, is but the bearer of a celestial bait-can 
 and intent upon his neighbouring fishes. And of 
 you two, who each began your fishing before your 
 seventh year was out, I have good hope of making 
 salmon fishers, especially since that day when you, 
 Drewett, were so fortunate as to hook and, with 
 much luck and with some little help, to land your 
 first grilse a fish of 4^ Ibs. when worming for 
 dace that very first season. One of you, indeed, 
 began the taking of fish at the age of three by 
 stealing, much to the joy of the proprietor, and to 
 the detriment of your clothing, a small sea-trout 
 from a fishmonger's slab, over which you, standing 
 on tiptoe, were at that time barely able to peep. 
 
 I have written these letters for you in the hope 
 
 vii
 
 Vlll 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 that they may tell you all that I can teach you 
 about fishing. If they can teach you how to do 
 it, I know well that you will like it. And for you 
 two I need say nothing about myself, but as I 
 begin to hope that these letters which I have 
 written may help or amuse others, I must say 
 something of my own fishing. 
 
 In the library of one enthusiastic angler as 
 Walton says ' now with God, a noted fisher 
 both for Trout and Salmon/ there were no less than 
 two thousand seven hundred books upon fishing. 
 So, you see, when any one is found with pen in 
 hand writing a book upon angling he may well 
 be called upon, as the lawyers are when they 
 join their circuits, to ' state his pretensions/ 
 And if it were only to avoid the appearance of 
 teaching those who exceed himself in experi- 
 ence and in skill he would probably wish to 
 do so. 
 
 My own first experience of angling came very 
 near to being also my last. As a very little boy I 
 was fishing in the sea from a wooden landing-stage, 
 and in trying to make a few feet of thread with a 
 bent pin at the end of it reach out to some tiny 
 prize, I tumbled in and was at once swept out by 
 the tide. Luckily for me I had a brother, to call 
 for help, and a mother your grandmother both 
 able and willing, fully dressed as she was, to swim
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 for me and to support me, although I was un- 
 conscious, until we were both rescued. Since 
 then, though I have tried a great variety of 
 sport, both in this country and in other parts 
 of the world, fishing has always had a very 
 large share of my affection, and of my holidays. 
 Indeed, I was almost, as they say in the North, 
 ' tied ' to like it, for I learnt it partly from a 
 grandfather who caught his first salmon at fifteen 
 and his last at eighty-four, and still more from 
 a cousin more than a father to me who had 
 fished skilfully from his earliest boyhood, and 
 who read all these pages in print, although 
 almost yesterday it was he has since been called 
 away to take his seat by that grim ferryman who 
 awaits us all. 
 
 Of coarse fish I have no experience, and though 
 I have fished for trout in many waters in this 
 country, from the Exe and the Itchen up to the 
 streams and lochs of Sutherland, and also in 
 Norway and in New Zealand, yet it is mainly as 
 a salmon fisher that I have loved to fish, and a great 
 part of my salmon fishing has been upon a single 
 river. I have never fished any of the extraordin- 
 arily good rivers either here or in Norway. How 
 amazingly good some salmon waters can be, and 
 how abundantly one may catch salmon in them, 
 may, perhaps, be realised from the following little
 
 x PREFACE 
 
 correspondence in the Field newspaper during the 
 month of February 1909. On February the 20th 
 a man writes to say that a lady, during the season 
 lately over, has caught no less than seventy-five 
 salmon to her own rod, and he asks is this not 
 a ' record ' that curse of true sport. To him on 
 February the 27th replies a proud husband ; the 
 partner of his joys has beaten this ' record/ and 
 in six weeks of fishing has slaughtered no less 
 than 104 salmon of the average weight of 19 Ibs. 
 But both these heroines have to yield the palm 
 to a lady whose take for one season, tersely re- 
 corded by her husband, is the following : Spring 
 55, summer 25, autumn 53, total 133 salmon, 
 besides 750 sea-trout. 
 
 If to those whose lines are cast in such pleasant 
 places my takes seem rather small, yet they 
 represented very reasonable success upon the 
 waters on which they were in fact obtained. 
 Nor have they been left to the treachery of 
 memory, for they were entered from day to day in 
 Fishing Books kept with an almost religious care, 
 and recording, with many details, every fish taken 
 upon the water. So that if I am to be accused of 
 lying, as commonly happens to the fisherman, it 
 must be not merely the proverbial exaggeration 
 of recollection, but deliberate, perverse, and 
 pestilent.
 
 PREFACE xi 
 
 Amongst people who have fished a great deal 
 the following items together give a rough idea of 
 the kind of experience that any salmon fisher 
 has had. During upwards of twenty years of 
 salmon fishing in holidays only my three best 
 seasons have yielded me seventy-eight, seventy- 
 three, and sixty-eight salmon, my best spring 
 day five salmon, and my best autumn day nine 
 salmon and two bull-trout, whilst my heaviest 
 fish has been 40^ Ibs. 
 
 As I undertake to teach you, my boys, I must, 
 of course, set out very plainly my own opinion 
 about theories held by many fine fishers, and 
 criticise many things that they, perhaps, do. They 
 may now be able to assure themselves that their 
 experience is greater than mine ; and in any case, 
 being anglers, I have little fear of annoying them, 
 for they will be still quite sure that they are 
 altogether right. But if I can hand on to you some 
 of the skilful teaching and some of the ' wrinkles ' 
 that have been always freely given to me by 
 almost every good fisher that I have ever met 
 some of whom, I hope, may recognise their teaching 
 here I shall be more than repaid for the trouble 
 of this little book. If from it you learn only a few 
 of these things that I want you to know, how to 
 tie your salmon gut with the knot that I have 
 explained for you at page 187, how to save your
 
 xii PREFACE 
 
 flies on windy days by dressing them on a loop of 
 soft fiddle-string (p. 167), how to recover your form 
 at once when your casting is not satisfying you 
 (p. 15), and how to hold your rod in a less strained 
 and less tiring attitude than is commonly done by 
 the salmon fisher (p. 24), if you learn only those 
 four things from these letters, I fancy that you will 
 find yourselves content. 
 
 Many a time in reading books upon salmon 
 fishing I have wished that their skilful writers 
 would tell one a little more about the fish that 
 they have caught about the fights that they 
 made for their liberty, their success or failure, 
 and the angler's view of their desperate battles. 
 When an author will write so for me I stand 
 beside him in the river, my fingers feel the line, 
 the reel screams in my ears, some fish of mine, 
 lost or long dead, flings himself out with theirs 
 or dashes down over the foaming rapids and our 
 fish are lost together. When the fish is landed 
 my interest ends, but if the fish is lost I know 
 that angler's mind. My rod flies up with his, 
 then comes a moment's doubt, a hope that the 
 fish may only have turned, and in spite of all may 
 still be on, then the sickening certainty that he 
 has gone. It has always seemed to me strange 
 that such trivial details can be interesting even 
 to another fisherman but they are so, and I
 
 PREFACE xiii 
 
 suppose that it is only another proof of the 
 extraordinary fascination that salmon fishing has 
 for us. 
 
 Of course, many times though your books will 
 hardly tell you this the playing of a salmon is 
 as dull and uneventful as a thing can be. If that 
 dulness were not varied, and pretty often, by the 
 most brilliant contrasts, we should soon despise 
 salmon fishing and abandon it altogether. But 
 amongst every few fish comes one whose pluck 
 and speed and dash keep your hands trem- 
 bling the whole time that you are playing him, 
 and wipe out all memory of his less active 
 fellows. 
 
 Well, I have tried to give you a good many 
 of such fishing days, and the actual details of 
 the fights I had. In doing this it is useless to 
 search back into one's memory, even aided by 
 the best fishing records. You must, as I think, 
 and have done, take a day that is still to-day or 
 only yesterday and give the actual events from 
 a fresh and precise recollection of them. If you 
 find it dull to read these detailed accounts of play- 
 ing fish, you must skip them, but I hope that when 
 you can fish you will see something out of your 
 own memory in them because you yourselves are 
 salmon fishers and have dreamed dreams. 
 
 Not egotism, but the direct simplicity of using
 
 xiv . PREFACE 
 
 the first and second person in speaking of scenes 
 at which one has been present, and in giving any 
 instruction, caused me to retain the form of letters 
 directly to you. 
 
 I have put in two photographs of salmon and 
 some others of typical salmon pools. The latter 
 were all taken by my friend Bruce Williamson, to 
 whom I am greatly indebted for them. I have 
 to thank certain of my friends for reading several 
 of these letters and helping me to knock out some 
 fustian from what I had written. I dare say that 
 there is much fustian left. I fear it is so. It is 
 rather easy to be absurd when the very thought 
 of a rod and a salmon pool can make one feel like 
 a schoolboy going home for the holidays. 
 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 A. H. C.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PACE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY, ..... I 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. THE ROD, LINE, AND GUT, ... 6 
 
 II. ON CASTING THE FLY. WHERE TO CAST. MOVING 
 
 BETWEEN CASTS, . . . .12 
 
 III. HOW TO FISH, . . . . .27 
 
 IV. ON FLIES, ... 34 
 V. STRIKING THE FISH, . . . . .40 
 
 VI. ON PLAYING A SALMON, . . .46 
 
 VII. THE SENSE OF PAIN IN FISH, . . 55 
 
 VIII. SPRING FISHING, . 63 
 
 ODE TO A SALMON RIVER, . . .76 
 
 IX. A WEEK-END IN OCTOBER, . . 77 
 
 X. MINNOW FISHING, . . . . .88 
 
 XI. WORMING, . . . . . .105 
 
 XII. ONE OF OUR BEST DAYS, . . . .114 
 
 XIII. ON OTTERS AND OTHER POACHERS, . .126 
 
 XIV. SOME MORE POACHERS, . . . -137 
 XV. THE LAST DAY OF A SEASON, . . .145 
 
 XVI. MY BEST FISH, . . . . .150 
 
 XVII. WHEN AND WHERE TO EXPECT SALMON, . .158
 
 xvi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XVIII. HINTS ON FLY TYING, . 1 66 
 
 XIX. KNOTS, . .177 
 
 XX. OF WADING, WADERS, AND CLOTHING, . .192 
 
 XXI. TACKLE AND ACCESSORIES, . . 2OI 
 
 XXII. ON SPAWNING SALMON, . ,. 208 
 
 xxni. ON SPAWNING SALMON continued, . 220 
 
 XXIV. TALES OF A GREAT-GRANDFATHER, . 229 
 
 XXV. NATURAL HISTORY AND OTHER POINTS, . . 253 
 
 XXVI. THE OLD SALMON ACTS, . .263 
 
 XXVII. ON TAKING A FISHING, . . 273 
 
 XXVIII. A POSTSCRIPT, . . . 278 
 
 XXIX. SOME BOOKS ON FISHING, . 282 
 
 INDEX, . . . 286 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 THE THROAT OF A POOL, . . . facing page 6 
 
 A SALMON POOL, . 34 
 
 A HIGHLAND RIVER, ., 76 
 
 A 25 LBS. FISH ON A SPINNING ROD, 92 
 
 SEPTEMBER 7TH, 1908, . ,,122 
 
 A FORTY-POUNDER,. ,, 156 
 
 AN ENGLISH RIVER, . . 228 
 
 A ROCKY STREAM IN SCOTLAND, . . 272
 
 LETTERS 
 
 TO 
 
 A SALMON FISHER'S SONS 
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 
 ON FISHING 
 
 As Bacon said, ' God Almighty first planted a 
 garden, and sure it is the purest of all humane 
 pleasures.' The fisher constantly is as it were in 
 a wild garden, and this very pleasure to be found 
 in the beauty around him he has made a part of 
 his. sport itself. It has a spirit : it is not merely 
 the sport of taking fish. 
 
 This was not always so, because it was not always 
 realised, and even to this day in many countries 
 angling is thought of merely as a humble drudgery. 
 But in England, since the time of Walton, the 
 first thought of your true fisher is of the fresh air, 
 the rushing water in his ears, the cool evenings, 
 the glowing sunsets, the flowers and trees, the 
 birds, and all the river-loving things in furs or 
 feathers. Small voices speak to him : the cheerful 
 ' chit-chit ' of the water ouzel, the droning of 
 bees in the heather, the distant cry of curlew 
 that sweet quavering call which finds some 
 unfailing echo in the soul of every man that 
 
 A
 
 4 AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 
 
 If he is salmon fishing, to see him, with that slow 
 recovery and easy action that lays the fly at the 
 full stretch, even against a strong and gusty wind, 
 casting a long, clean line and fishing every pool 
 like a master of his craft. 
 
 Every cast well done is a separate and distinct 
 effort with a distinct pleasure in its success. 
 Every salmon fisher knows a few difficult or risky 
 casts that delight him every time that he makes 
 them neatly. Salmon love to lie against stakes 
 or weiring or the points of jetties, and such places 
 often require the most dexterous casting. And 
 even the best salmon fisher varies in the nicety 
 of his throw. On one day a happy judgment 
 seems to pitch the fly almost within an inch or 
 two of every danger ; on another his gayest fly 
 remains to ornament some snag or stake. The 
 boldest cast goes right ; the slightest hesitation 
 hits the very danger that it feared. 
 
 But I wander from the point, which is that the 
 act of fishing is itself a pleasure, and one not easy 
 to explain except to those to whom it needs no 
 explanation. Each several cast is an act of no 
 little skill, with many stages between complete 
 success and total failure ; and each cast well made 
 in good water is the beginning of a new and vivid 
 hope of that surging swirl upon the water, or that 
 heavy unseen pull, which marks the supreme 
 moment of salmon fishing. 
 
 Of the pleasure of success in fishing I need say 
 nothing. We all know it ; and we all have felt
 
 THE FIRST SALMON 5 
 
 it. Why do we look back upon that first quiver- 
 ing salmon and recall every detail of the scene ? 
 Many triumphs of every kind we can forget, but 
 never that one. You may have a wife than whom 
 no man has a dearer ; you may have triumphed in 
 endless ways ; but not wedding days, nor school- 
 boy triumphs, nor student hopes fulfilled, nor 
 snowy peaks, nor the hunter's fiercer joy will have 
 so many cells in the honeycomb of memory as your 
 first spring salmon. The eleventh of March 
 seldom finds me near a river without my seeing 
 that day well over twenty years ago when, as a 
 boy, I stepped into the water and lifted out by 
 the tail my first salmon a little fish, as I know 
 now, of 9J- Ibs., but then I thought it the most 
 beautiful fish that ever was seen. 
 
 But even success has its limits ; the fish is 
 caught, the thing is done. It is our lost fish that 
 I believe stay longest in our memory, and seize 
 upon our thoughts whenever we look back to 
 fishing days. The most gallant fish when eaten 
 is forgotten, but the fish that, after a mad, glorious 
 battle, has beaten us and left us quivering with 
 excitement and vexation, is hooked and lost again 
 in many a year to come. 
 
 A2
 
 THE ROD, LINE, AND GUT 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, ' A large demonstration of 
 words ' is not the best way of teaching salmon 
 fishing. Actual fishing in the company of a good 
 salmon fisher is the best way, and, indeed, it is 
 the only really good way; but I have myself 
 found a great deal of help in reading books on 
 fishing, and a great deal of pleasure, more especially 
 when fish have been taking badly, in trying the 
 various ways in which their authors advise you to 
 proceed. From a book you cannot learn the whole 
 art of salmon fishing, but you can learn to avoid 
 many disastrous mistakes, and you can learn 
 endless ' wrinkles ' which make your fishing 
 more finished and much more effectual than 
 before. 
 
 We most of us begin as trout fishers, and after 
 a season or two of salmon fishing we feel that we 
 know all about it, and that there is really not much 
 to be learnt by any decent trout fisher. But a 
 larger experience brings doubts. We find that in 
 low waters and in the worst conditions some few 
 men can regularly catch fish, whilst everybody 
 else on the river is doing nothing. When salmon 
 are taking freely almost any one who can throw
 
 SKILL IN FISHING 7 
 
 a fly may catch a salmon, but at other times the 
 difference between a really good and a merely 
 ordinary fisher is just as great in salmon fishing 
 as it is in trouting, or as it is between the good and 
 the ordinary performer in every other sport. In 
 really bad conditions the good fisher alone will 
 catch fish and the other will consistently catch 
 nothing. Moreover, I am convinced that your 
 really skilful salmon fisher is a much rarer bird 
 than the really good trout fisher. It may be that 
 the opportunities of gaining great experience of 
 salmon fishing are not so common, and perhaps 
 fall too often to somewhat luxurious and idle 
 sportsmen who leave the whole direction in the 
 hands of the gillie or keeper, whilst the good 
 trout fisher does his own thinking, and becomes a 
 far better performer. But certainly, whatever be 
 the reason, great skill is not so common in salmon 
 fishing. 
 
 Most books on fishing begin with a chapter on 
 the natural history of the salmon and of his 
 cousins the bull-trout and the sea-trout. Next 
 they go on to deal at very great length with the 
 rods and reels and flies, and the tackle of every 
 sort, with which you may hope to catch him. 
 As to the life-history of the salmon, our knowledge 
 of it, thanks to systematic marking of fish, is only 
 just now beginning to be worth anything at all; 
 but this knowledge has hardly any bearing upon 
 the actual catching of the fish with rod and line, 
 and I shall keep for a later letter what little I have
 
 8 THE ROD, LINE, AND GUT 
 
 to say about the habits and food of the fish and 
 about its deadly enemies at every stage of its 
 life. 
 
 I shall deal also with rods and tackle in a 
 separate letter. As to the tackle I will here only 
 say this : as the prize is large, powerful, and 
 greatly valued, so the tackle should in every detail 
 be sound and strong and the best of its kind. I 
 do not mean that the gut, for instance, should be 
 of the stoutest, nor that the rod or reel need be 
 very costly. Far from it. Many people use gut 
 that is far too thick ; so thick that it spoils the 
 working of any small fly, and actually helps to 
 prevent its users from ever hooking the fish 
 that they have provided such strength to 
 hold. 
 
 So also with flies. Many of the costly shop flies 
 are so overloaded with feathers that when in the 
 water they are only a sodden lump, and all life 
 and movement is destroyed. These flies only begin 
 to kill fish when they get old and knocked to bits 
 with use. Their confiding owner, too, usually has 
 a great tin box, or else a giant book, full of similar 
 glories ; and he spends a large part of his time, 
 when he ought to be fishing, in inspecting these 
 flies in order to decide which he shall use 
 next, and then in tying it on in place of the 
 one which he had last preferred. This ex- 
 travagance in gut and flies, just as in rods or 
 reels, does not help you one bit. Any sound rod, 
 whether of greenheart or of cane, wiD do well ;
 
 LINES, THICK AND THIN 9 
 
 but it ought not to be so long or so heavy as to 
 overtax your strength in any way. Personally I 
 generally use rods of split cane with steel centres, 
 and I do that because they have been given to 
 me ; but I am inclined to think that the steel 
 centre, though ensuring its long life, does not 
 make the rod so quick and lively or so ' sweet ' 
 to fish with as is a simple split cane rod by an 
 equally good maker. For my part I think that 
 there is only one satisfactory maker of such rods, 
 but it is not my business to advertise him. 
 
 So with reels. Any sound reel will do, but I 
 prefer to have a reel as small as possible say 
 four inches, or even three and a half inches, across 
 the whole side and to get the right length of 
 line by using very thin and strong undressed 
 ' backing ' of plaited silk or hemp. If you have, 
 as for years I had, only one rod let us say a 
 strong rod of seventeen feet, for that is about 
 the size most generally useful it is well worth 
 while to have both a heavy and a light line for it. 
 When the water is low, or when the weather is 
 not very windy, the lighter line is the means of 
 fishing with much less effort and very much more 
 lightly and more pleasantly than you could do 
 with the heavier one. In very windy weather the 
 heavy line will fish better and will save you endless 
 vexation and effort. Even if one keeps only a 
 single reel to serve for both of these lines, the 
 trouble of tying on a different line is very small, 
 and changes need not usually be frequent, as one
 
 io THE ROD, LINE, AND GUT 
 
 fishes with the lighter line always except in big 
 waters or blustering winds. You keep each line 
 whipped on to its own 60 to 100 yards of backing, 
 and you reel off the whole together and then tie 
 on the other line to the core or drum of the 
 empty reel. 
 
 Although it will be rather costly, yet it is true 
 economy to buy a really good line, and then to 
 keep it sound by seeing that it is invariably put 
 out and dried after use, even though you intend 
 to fish the next day. For the heavier line I do 
 not think it by any means necessary that it should 
 be tapered, though it is pleasanter so ; but the 
 lighter one should be the softest and the most 
 pliable double-tapered line that you can get. 
 
 As to gut, it need not be at all expensive if you 
 make up your own casts ; which is one of the 
 simplest things in the world, almost as easy as 
 falling off the proverbial log, as soon as you know 
 the proper knot to use for strong gut. 1 Yet at the 
 present time not one angler in fifty knows how to 
 tie that knot, and it is used only by one or two 
 fishing-tackle makers, who jealously keep the 
 secret. For the strongest fish you may use quite 
 thin gut if you in the first place select the gut and 
 tie it properly, and then are always alert to watch 
 it and to remove any weakened strand, and to 
 re- tie any injured or ' necked ' knot. The first 
 sign of weakening may be seen by taking the cast 
 by short lengths in both hands and bending it at 
 
 1 See Chap. xix. for this knot.
 
 GUT ii 
 
 each knot, when any unsound or necked strand 
 will at once show itself by a sharp uneven bend 
 usually close to the knot. This is a much more 
 searching test than a mere pull at the gut cast ; 
 and a cast that when soaked will stand a moderate, 
 but firm, pull, and will show no weakness when 
 bent at every knot, as I have just described, is 
 quite sound and fit to stand the strain of any 
 fish. 
 
 No more about tackle at present. Let us begin 
 straightway to fish. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 A. H. C.
 
 II 
 
 ON CASTING THE FLY 
 
 MY DEAR SONS, Every one can tell you that you 
 cast a fly by using a rod in the same manner as 
 you would a whip. That is correct enough, but 
 when first you begin to put that advice into 
 practice you will find it vague and unsatisfying 
 to the last degree. Then you find that the only 
 thing that you do not do with the fly is to send 
 it out as you wish. You may know quite well 
 how to handle a whip, but the strong salmon rod 
 seems quite incapable of any similar movements, 
 and the line persists in splashing into the water 
 ' all in a heap/ whilst the gut ties itself into 
 tangled knots. The fact is that the easy whip-like 
 motion is only to be had in perfection with a long 
 line, and the beginner, for obvious reasons, has 
 not started with a long line. 
 
 The vital fault with most beginners is that they 
 fail to bend the rod ; they use it not as a whip 
 but as if it were a stiff pole. In their effort to 
 send the line back behind them they throw the 
 point of the rod too far back. They wave the rod 
 back, instead of first raising the line to the surface 
 of the water, by lifting the rod top gently, and then 
 sharply throwing the line back, and up into the 
 air behind them, with a flip of the top of the rod. 
 
 u
 
 CASTING 13 
 
 You should always start your learner in a swift, 
 even-running stream, where his line will be pulled 
 out taut for him by the current before each new 
 cast is made. The act of casting with a salmon 
 rod is, for the beginner, a straight overhead flip- 
 flip, that is, a strong flip back and upwards ; 
 then a sharp and firm stopping of the rod whilst 
 you may count steadily ' one/ ' two ' ; then a 
 much easier flip forward and upward. 
 
 That is the cast ; the essential acts of casting. 
 
 For the benefit of any learner without a present 
 coach I will try to describe accurately in detail the 
 method of casting with a salmon rod. Such a 
 minute description is necessarily tedious to any 
 one but the beginner, and should be skipped by 
 every one else, except, perhaps, the paragraph 
 on page 15, in which is pointed out the way of 
 recovering one's form when, through being tired 
 or out of practice, one is casting badly and 
 spoiling half the pleasure of one's fishing. I 
 ought to add that I have never been in the habit 
 of using a Castle Connell rod or any rod of that 
 type, and that I do not think my directions 
 very appropriate for an exceedingly whippy or 
 top-heavy rod. And one must remember that 
 almost every rod varies slightly in the period, 
 that is to say in the timing, of its action. 
 
 THE DETAIL OF CASTING 
 
 Before the cast begins the rod must be raised, 
 usually to an angle of about 45 from the water,
 
 14 
 
 in order to bring the line to the surface before you 
 try to throw it back behind you. No rod can 
 throw back a line which is still left sunk deeply 
 in the water, except as a very occasional effort 
 and in the hands of a skilled fisher. 
 
 For ordinary fishing the line must be brought as 
 near the surface as possible before every cast. 
 
 Again, when the flip-flip has been given, the rod 
 point is still high in the air and is allowed to sink 
 almost in one movement to an easy position in 
 which it may be held whilst the fly swings round. 
 The novice often fails to see that the force is all 
 put into the very beginning of the forward flip, 
 and he firmly waves the rod forward down to the 
 fishing position. His line follows the downward 
 direction and falls in a heap. 
 
 Consider by itself the act of throwing the line 
 forward. As you want a line, at that moment 
 stretching back from the rod top, to be thrown 
 straight forward over the water, it is easy to see 
 that the impetus must be given at the highest part 
 of the curve made by the rod, for that alone can 
 give the line a forward pull parallel to the water 
 level. Similarly, after making the backward flip, 
 which is to lift the line, the rod should instantly 
 be stopped firmly with the butt piece very little 
 past the perpendicular of course the top will 
 bend back rather more. Even so, the line is 
 falling as it runs out behind you, but if the rod is 
 waved far back, as beginners almost always do, 
 the line is dragged downwards and cannot extend
 
 KEY TO GOOD CASTING 15 
 
 behind you, as it is essential, for a beginner, that 
 it should do in order to prepare for a clean and 
 easy cast forward. 
 
 In describing the cast both back and forward 
 again you may notice that I say that it should be 
 a flip backwards and upwards, or forwards and 
 slightly upwards. This is the great key to good 
 casting. As the flip back is made, the wrists and 
 elbows are raised, so that the lower of your two 
 wrists is almost shoulder high. Then as the line 
 runs back the rod, almost unconsciously, is allowed 
 to sink six or eight inches perpendicularly, and 
 as the forward flip is given the elbows are again 
 raised, and the point of the rod, as it were, 
 pushed out forward and upward, with a much 
 slower and slighter flip than the backward one. 
 
 Even when you can cast well you will often, at 
 the beginning of the season, or when getting tired, 
 find that your casting is not pleasing you, is not 
 so straight and easy as it should be, and that the fly 
 is not falling at the full stretch of the gut. Then 
 is the time to remember to use your wrists and 
 raise them high, and as it were to lift the flip back 
 and push out and up the cast forward, and I will 
 undertake that you shall instantly find that 
 all your old skill and lightness has returned. 
 
 A cast, then, is made thus (beginning from the 
 fishing position at the end of the former cast) : 
 
 1. Raise the rod slowly to bring the line to 
 the surface, then (without any pause) 
 
 2. A sharp flip back and up, raising the arms
 
 16 ON CASTING THE FLY 
 
 and stopping the rod sharply when the butt 
 is just beyond the upright. 
 
 3. A pause of about a second, then an easy 
 flip forward and upward. (During the 
 pause the rod sinks perpendicularly a few 
 inches, and at the end of the cast the arms 
 are fully outstretched and level with the 
 shoulders.) 
 
 4. Then the rod, without a pause, gently 
 sinks to the fishing position, and the arms 
 are drawn in to the sides. 
 
 The chief difficulty with a beginner is to get the 
 time of the cast. He will hardly ever give the 
 line time to run out behind him before making the 
 cast forward. With an average length of line, 
 say about three to four rod lengths out from 
 the reel to the fly, the time is this : (spoken 
 slowly) (lift, then) FLIP one two flip (and 
 lower) . 
 
 I need hardly say that when you become skilful 
 you can choose amongst many styles of casting, 
 and in each style can fish with much variation ; 
 but when once you have mastered the simple 
 ' overhead ' cast, as it is called, you can fish almost 
 any pool perfectly well, and soon other ways of 
 casting will come to you naturally and easily. 
 For myself I almost always use another cast which 
 consists in throwing the line not overhead, but to 
 one side of you, and always up the stream, no 
 matter from which side you are fishing. Then,
 
 CASTING AGAINST THE WIND 17 
 
 chiefly with a turn of the wrists, you switch it 
 forward and across in the line that you wish it 
 to take in order to cover the stream for the next 
 cast. 
 
 Casting against a high wind blowing almost 
 straight in his face is a severe trial to a beginner. 
 His fly will persist in falling back in a muddle just 
 when the gut seemed about to uncurl and fall at 
 its full stretch. He puts more and more force 
 into the cast and quickly gets tired and dis- 
 heartened. He should go at it not violently but 
 more quietly, should throw the line rather on to 
 the surface of the water than over it as usual, and 
 should finish his cast with the rod top actually 
 touching the water. He should cast quietly but 
 cast, as it were, at the water, and he will soon 
 find that he can cast even against such a wind 
 quite comfortably and quite well. But a good 
 rod is a great help to him. 
 
 WHERE TO CAST 
 
 Now as to the direction of your cast. Your 
 books will tell you to cast down and across the 
 stream and at an angle of about 45 ; and so 
 you should do in straightforward, simple streams, 
 where such a cast will enable you to put your fly 
 well beyond the lie of the fish. But never hesitate 
 to vary the angle to suit any pool. Especially in 
 swirling pot holes or in any pool where there is a 
 strong eddy on one or both sides, a cast made 
 
 B
 
 i8 ON CASTING THE FLY 
 
 straight across or even slightly up-stream, and 
 fished by raising the rod point slowly as the fly 
 comes into the main current, appears to be par- 
 ticularly attractive to the fish. It is not only to 
 salmon that this cast is deadly, for I have con- 
 stantly found that large trout will snatch the 
 salmon fly as it is just on the point of being towed 
 out of the eddy into which it fell. 
 
 Such swirling pools are generally deep, and the 
 fish usually take best at and below the point where 
 the heavy boil ends and where the violent surging 
 water begins to grow shallow and to run fan- wise, 
 swift and glassy to all sides. There it is well to 
 make two kinds of casts at each stand, one 
 thrown well across to take fish lying in the eddy 
 or on the farther edge of the heavy water, the 
 other barely clearing the heavy water to hang 
 well over fish lying on the nearer edge of the 
 heavy water. Cast thus the fly will not be swept 
 over these fish as quickly as you will find that in 
 the former cast it is swept away when once the 
 swirling current catches it. 
 
 On the other hand, when the water is dead low 
 and the fish shy, you will often find that the 
 quicker the fly can be made to sweep over them 
 the better is your chance of a rise. At such times 
 I have over and over again for weeks together 
 caught almost all my fish by casting a small fly 
 straight across the stream, keeping the fly near the 
 surface by raising the rod point in a series of small, 
 steady lifts, and ending by pulling in some yards
 
 CASTING LIGHTLY 19 
 
 of line by hand as the fly fishes the nearer edge of 
 the stream. Then, of course, one must ' shoot ' 
 that slack line through the rings as the next cast 
 is made. Indeed, you are almost compelled to 
 draw in line by hand in such slow waters in order 
 to prevent the line from sinking too deep for you 
 to make the next cast, and also in order to ensure 
 that the fly shall fall softly on the water. 
 
 The soft falling of the fly on the water is not so 
 important when waters are high or coloured, but 
 is a very vital matter in low and ' gin ' clear 
 streams. People will tell you that it is of no 
 practical importance to cast a salmon fly lightly 
 and without any splash. Pay no attention to 
 them. When the water gets low and clear, light 
 casting and light tackle too becomes of cardinal 
 importance. I have, hundreds of times, in low 
 water seen fish bolt off the shallows into deep 
 water when a clumsy cast, of my own or of some 
 other's making, has fallen near them. Many times, 
 also, I have seen the wave made by a fish moving 
 off, though more quietly, at the sight of the 
 finest tackle lightly cast, and when, from the place 
 in which they were lying, it was almost certain 
 that they could not have seen the fisher. If 
 they can thus be so alarmed as to move off, how 
 often must they, one would suppose, in a higher 
 water, detect the gut or the splash when either 
 they are not so much frightened as to move away, 
 or by reason of the greater volume of water we 
 are unable to see that they have done so.
 
 20 ON CASTING THE FLY 
 
 MOVING BETWEEN THE CASTS 
 
 There is no hard-and-fast rule to be laid down 
 as to the pace at which you should cover the 
 water when salmon fishing. Speaking generally, 
 one moves about a yard after each cast, but when 
 your fly is covering the very best part of the pool 
 or some place where you know that a good fish 
 is lying, you may well move less than a yard at a 
 time, or, still better, may make a second cast, 
 placed rather less across the stream, before you 
 move from each stand. There is one great error 
 to be avoided which is a fault very common with 
 beginners and one into which older fishers often 
 fall ; you must avoid moving down the pool 
 whilst the fly is being swept over the fish. Take 
 your step or steps down the pool before you cast 
 the fly, and do not move again until that cast is 
 fished out. To move down whilst the fly is 
 fishing, unless perhaps in a very swift bit of water, 
 obviously slackens the line and spoils the fishing 
 of the fly. The chief object in striving to cast 
 well is to have the line always stretched taut to the 
 fly, partly in order that the fly, by stemming the 
 current, may appear to the fish a living thing, 
 partly that the fish, if he takes the fly, may not 
 escape being hooked. Both these ends are lost 
 if you move down-stream whilst the fly is fishing. 
 You should try to move down whilst you are 
 slowly lifting the fly as it hangs on the nearer 
 edge of the stream after the cast is over, but if
 
 AVOID DISTURBING FISH 21 
 
 the bank is rough or the wading difficult you have 
 to move down as best you can, but always after 
 the fly has done its journey across the pool. 
 
 Do not wade near the place where the fish lie 
 unless neither you nor any one else is to fish that 
 water again. Salmon are not very shy in big 
 waters, but in low, clear water you may easily 
 prevent them taking altogether. Indeed, I think 
 that perhaps one of the chief reasons why fishing 
 straight across the stream so often pays in low 
 waters is that this method keeps the angler and 
 his gleaming rod well away from the fish. For in 
 sunlight the rod gleams brightly, and our absurd 
 aluminium reels and nickelled gaffs flash in the 
 sunlight, and the net is spread in vain in the sight 
 of any bird. 
 
 Yet fishers constantly wade too far in and spoil 
 their own sport. The fact is that one watches the 
 place where the fly is fishing, forgetting the water 
 that one has just passed. 
 
 There is a strong craving, too, in all of us, even 
 the oldest, to cover just a yard or two more water 
 than we comfortably can reach. It is a mistake 
 from all points of view, but it has to be reckoned 
 with, and you should constantly look at the water 
 opposite to the place at which you are standing in 
 order to see that you are not getting too far in. 
 
 If you have plenty of water to fish, do not allow 
 yourself to become a slow, pottering fisher. 
 Except at the best spots fish quickly, move 
 rather more than a yard, even up to two yards, 
 
 B2
 
 22 ON CASTING THE FLY 
 
 between the casts, and rather leave time to come 
 back and try the pools again than consume your 
 time in slowly going over them once. The fish 
 that is not willing to take now may very well do 
 so after noon or as the evening closes in. Two of 
 the soundest pieces of advice that I know came 
 down to me from an arrant old North Yorkshire 
 poacher who had fished all his life in the river Tees, 
 and who, about the year 1820, used to teach your 
 great-grandfather to fish. This old rascal had 
 two constant maxims. The first was, ' Keep 
 stirring your foot,' by which, of course, he meant 
 keep moving on, so as to cover new water, a most 
 essential point in trout fishing with the wet fly, and 
 hardly less valuable to the salmon fisher. His 
 second maxim was intended solely for the salmon 
 fisher, and it was this, ' You 've allers a chance of 
 a daft 'un or a blind 'un.' This uncouth phrase 
 was intended to express the fact that on the very 
 worst day and at the least expected time and place 
 you may well catch a salmon. On many and 
 many a hopeless day I have persevered, with that 
 in mind, and have not missed the reward. I still 
 have a salmon fly of that old man's making, 
 inherited from his pupil of 1820, together with 
 much quaint old tackle. The fly is tied upon a big 
 2j-inch hook of the old ' Sproat ' bend. The body 
 is a huge caterpillar of coarse red wool, as thick as 
 a lead pencil, with a fibre of gold tinsel from an 
 old epaulette twisted round it. There is a stubby 
 tail made of a few barred strands from a jay's
 
 HOLDING THE ROD 23 
 
 wing, and the fly is winged with two tail feathers 
 of the wren, tied so as to lie almost flat along 
 the body, like the wings of a stone-fly. It 
 has no hackle, throat, cheeks, butt, tag, horns, or 
 topping, none of the nonsense dear to the modern 
 salmon fisher, but I have often been assured by 
 my grandfather that with this fly the old man 
 caught as many salmon as those fishers who could 
 command the best flies of that day, and that 
 except in very low waters he used no other fly 
 but this. 
 
 How TO HOLD THE SALMON ROD 
 
 The friendly scoffer thinks that all fishing is a 
 gentle and restful method of enjoying the fresh air 
 and the beauties of nature, and that as a manly 
 exercise it is a mere nothing, perhaps something 
 more vigorous than billiards. Tell him that 
 salmon fishing is hard, bodily labour, and he can- 
 not believe that you are serious. It looks so easy. 
 But if you can only decoy him into a pair of long 
 waders, and put him in a strong water and with a 
 big rod in his hands, to attempt a day's salmon 
 fishing, you will hear no more criticism of that 
 kind. Even hardened salmon fishers, after a 
 cold, rough day in heavy water, I have known to 
 come in almost too tired to eat, and I have more 
 than once seen a teasing hostess take a malicious 
 pleasure in putting them, after dinner, into a 
 comfortable arm-chair near a hot fire in order to
 
 24 ON CASTING THE FLY 
 
 enjoy seeing their heroic efforts to avoid the awful 
 crime of falling asleep in the drawing-room. It is 
 not only that the casting is hard work and finds 
 out all the untrained muscles in your back, but 
 the common way of holding a salmon rod when the 
 cast is over is very tiring also. After the cast, 
 and when the fly is fishing, the butt of the rod is 
 usually placed against the hip or flank of the angler, 
 and its weight is supported by one hand or the 
 other, which holds the rod some eighteen inches 
 beyond the reel. But owing to the leverage of 
 the long, heavy rod the position is a strained one, 
 and even to strong arms, not hardened by incessant 
 fishing, becomes, in time, very tiring. 
 
 Before a long day is over your forearm and elbow 
 can literally ache with the stiffness of this position, 
 added to the exertion of much casting, and you long 
 for some change, to rest the muscles on which the 
 strain falls. Well, there is another and a much 
 easier way of holding the rod either as a change 
 from or as a substitute for the more common 
 mode. The method is this : As you make 
 the cast, one hand, of course, is below the reel 
 and the other is holding the rod about eighteen 
 inches above it about the top of the cork 
 handle, if there is one. As the cast ends, you 
 retain the grasp of this upper hand only, and you 
 draw back the rod until the reel passes your side, 
 placing your other hand on the rod just below the 
 place where the lowest ring usually stands. 
 You will find that the seventeen-foot or
 
 HOLDING THE ROD 'SHORT' 25 
 
 eighteen-foot rod is almost, though not quite, 
 balanced in your hands, and further, that you can 
 feel the pull of the line much better, and that you 
 can strike with great quickness, yet without 
 excessive force. My own firm belief is that from 
 the time when I learned to hold the rod in this 
 way I have hooked a much greater proportion of 
 the fish which have touched my fly, and have 
 hardly lost any by hard striking. Of course 
 there is no mystery about this way of holding the 
 rod : it is known to many old fishers and to not 
 so many young ones, who are apt to regard it as 
 not quite so taking in appearance as the commoner 
 way. But I have the very highest opinion of it, 
 not only for its ease and comfort, but as a great 
 help to quick and certain hooking of the fish. I 
 think that the mere drawing back of the rod 
 involved is valuable as tightening the line after 
 every cast, but the greatest point is the quickness 
 with which you get in touch with your fish, and 
 the freedom from the risk of breaking the gut by 
 too sudden a stroke on feeling the pull of a salmon. 
 I first began using this way of holding the rod 
 from observing it practised by two of the best and 
 most experienced fishers that I know, and one of 
 them when fishing with me has in three days 
 taken fourteen salmon on the same fly from 
 successive rises and without missing one single 
 rise. Years ago I used to think that an average 
 of one fish landed for every three rises was fairly 
 good fishing, but now I think that one ought
 
 26 ON CASTING THE FLY 
 
 to kill on an average well over two fish out of every 
 three decent pulls or rises. 
 
 Holding the rod in this way is not difficult to 
 learn, but you can bungle it. Some men never 
 can keep the reel away from their bodies or cloth- 
 ing, or they manage to hold the line so that it 
 cannot go free when a fish takes, but a very little 
 practice will make this easy. It will be found, too, 
 that the most easy position with a heavy rod is 
 that where the right elbow is placed upon the rod 
 above the reel, and the upward pressure of the 
 butt is checked against the right forearm. Even 
 a very big and heavy rod held in this way seems 
 altogether lighter and livelier. 
 
 One hint or two upon carrying your rod whilst 
 walking from place to place on the bank, and 
 especially through woods or bushes. The top 
 seems to flip about much less if the rod is carried 
 almost horizontal and with the reel uppermost, 
 and whilst going through trees it is advisable to 
 carry it butt foremost. If carried over your 
 shoulder, you will find that the closer you hold your 
 hand to the point where the rod is resting on your 
 shoulder the less the rod will flip about behind 
 you. These things may seem trifles to tell you, 
 but when you are carrying a heavy load of fish 
 it is intensely annoying to have your rod con- 
 stantly slashing against or catching in the trees 
 as you pass them, and it is anything but easy to 
 prevent it.
 
 Ill 
 
 HOW TO FISH 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, When you have learnt to cast 
 a fly tolerably, you then begin to tackle the real 
 craft. That is, how to fish ; how best to make 
 use of your power of casting so that salmon 
 may be induced to take the fly you throw for 
 them. 
 
 There are few subjects in sport upon which 
 more theories are held, or about which more 
 nonsense is talked. These theories are held 
 almost as articles of faith and are stated with 
 angry conviction. Gillies and fishing-keepers are 
 proverbial for their ignorant omniscience. Nearly 
 all of them believe that there is only one way 
 and that, of course, is their way to do everything, 
 and the moment that they see a newcomer fish 
 otherwise, they regard him as little better than a 
 fool, and if he does not speedily conform to their 
 ways, he will receive neither information nor help 
 from them and you want their information as to 
 where the fish lie and where they take. The truth 
 is that there are many ways to fish well, and no one 
 way is the best in all cases. You may fish either 
 deep or on the surface, with flies large or small, 
 plain or gaudy, working the fly or bringing the rod 
 
 27
 
 2 8 HOW TO FISH 
 
 round perfectly steady, and in general you may 
 do well with each method. 
 
 The fact that different styles of fishing do hold 
 their ground amongst good fishers suggests as 
 I believe is the case that no one style should be 
 adhered to slavishly, and that to fish with the 
 greatest effect one should vary the methods of 
 fishing with the varying waters fished. And not 
 only do salmon pools differ greatly in character, 
 but the same pool often requires fishing in a totally 
 different place and manner according as the river 
 is high or low. Personally I was taught to hold 
 the rod almost level over the water and to fish a 
 long line, letting the fly sink deep, and fishing 
 without the least lifting motion of the rod point. 
 A fine fisher, then always fishing near me, used 
 the opposite method. With rod held high, as in 
 trouting, and with a rather short line, cast lightly 
 upon the water, he kept a much larger fly always 
 skimming near the surface with a constant lifting 
 motion intended to give the fly a lifelike play. 
 Over our first five years of fishing together he 
 maintained a slight but distinct lead in the number 
 of salmon caught, but in every single year the fish 
 taken in the same water by the deeper fishing of a 
 small fly averaged from I to 3 Ibs. heavier than 
 those taken by the larger fly played near the 
 surface. Other results we noticed. One method 
 succeeded constantly in places where the other 
 fisher used to fail, and in a big dark water the 
 surface method was greatly inferior to the other.
 
 TWO STYLES OF FISHING 29 
 
 So we came to vary the style of fishing to suit, 
 as we judged, the different pools and waters. 
 The result is that now in the rough stream of a 
 medium-sized river, or in deep, strong waters, we 
 fish with a long line cast well down-stream, and 
 allowed to come round as deep in the water as 
 possible without any playing of the rod, which is 
 held with the tip only two or three feet above the 
 water. But in low water, and in quiet streams 
 or glassy swirling pools, unless very strong indeed, 
 the fly is cast much more across the stream and 
 worked round by a series of short lifts until the 
 rod is almost upright, and often line is drawn in 
 by hand before making the next cast. 
 
 The clearer the water, and the more shy the fish, 
 the more I find myself fishing on the surface and 
 playing the fly quickly. There are many tricks 
 and variations. Across a glassy swirl one con- 
 stantly casts at right angles to the central stream 
 or even somewhat up-stream. After almost every 
 deeply fished cast one allows a slight hang to the 
 fly and then slowly draws it up with a series of 
 short lifts. In fishing from the inner side of a 
 curving stream a quite exaggerated hang, after 
 the fly appears to have swung below you, and then 
 a slow, jerky lifting, with rod stretched out far over 
 the stream, has constantly produced fine fish just 
 as the fly was about to be taken from the water. 
 They seem either to follow it, or as I have seen 
 them do to rush at it out of the part already 
 fished, as they see the fly being drawn past them
 
 30 HOW TO FISH 
 
 up the edge of the stream. Often the heaviest 
 fish will thus take the fly, and take it so late that 
 the only way to strike the hook home as you 
 must do with the line just about to leave the 
 water and the rod nearly upright is to jerk the 
 top violently backward so that the weight of the 
 line may jerk the hook hard into the fish. Often 
 when a pool has been fished down blank in the 
 ordinary style you may get a fish or two at once 
 by fishing it over again, either by starting to fish 
 from the bottom and backing upwards, or by 
 fishing from the top downwards, and in either 
 case casting straight across the stream and keeping 
 the rod top well up-stream as the fly comes round. 
 I have even seen a fish that in a dead low water 
 had been pricked, and would not rise again, taken 
 by the fisher standing at the head of the shrunken 
 stream, holding out his rod over the current and 
 letting down the same fly to his fish. 
 
 One more caution to you. Be most careful not 
 to bring round the rod point faster than the line is 
 being brought round by the current. This is a 
 very common fault, especially when one is im- 
 patient or pressed for time, but it is a bad fault, for 
 it keeps the line slack instead of taut to the fly. 
 Rather do the opposite and keep the point of 
 your rod out over the stream, particularly if the 
 fly has to swing close in below you. When fishing 
 from the inside of a curving stream you should be 
 most careful to do this. 
 
 I would not have any one think that any of these
 
 IN DEAD LOW WATER 31 
 
 methods are stated as being necessarily the best, 
 still less as the only good ways of fishing. The 
 more you can vary your fishing with the water the 
 better you will fish, but some idea of the ways 
 that others find to succeed may help you when no 
 mentor is at hand and the fish utterly decline your 
 offers. 
 
 In quick, narrow rushes, when the river is dead 
 low, a way that often succeeds is this : with a sea- 
 trout fly or a big March brown on a light line and 
 thin gut, make your cast straight across the rush, 
 then with outstretched rod let the fly sink as deep 
 as possible into the centre of the current, then with 
 a short, jerky motion begin towing it up-stream as 
 it approaches the side on which you stand. Con- 
 stantly the fish will grab the fly just after the 
 jerks begin. 
 
 On one, as I thought, quite hopeless after- 
 noon in September 1904, hot, hazy, and windless, 
 with a glaring sun, in a dead low water, in one 
 short stream, I took in this way, with a double- 
 handed trout rod and a small green-bodied, 
 heckam-peckam fly, three fish of 13, 12, and 5 Ibs., 
 and lost a fourth. Many and many a time the 
 odd fish that has saved a blank day in August or 
 September has come by this method when the 
 ordinary salmon fly and its manoeuvres were quite 
 useless. Again on two days in the season of 1907, 
 in the dead low September waters of that year, I 
 took four salmon each day with the same trout 
 rod and tiny fly. For this kind of fishing I use a
 
 3 2 HOW TO FISH 
 
 thin sea-trout cast ended off with three feet of 
 ordinary trout worming gut, but gut always new 
 and sound, and watched most carefully to detect 
 the least sign of weakening. Such gut costs only 
 a couple of shillings or so for a hundred strands, 
 and one must simply throw away the cast so soon 
 as it becomes frayed or weakened and make up a 
 new one in its place. It sounds alarming to hook 
 large salmon upon such thin gut, but if sound and 
 new, such gut is very strong indeed, and with a 
 light rod you need have no fear of a break unless 
 the fish can get round some rock or snag. These 
 things, of course, are generally more dangerous 
 than ever in low waters, and of them you must take 
 your chance, and must, when broken on them 
 as I constantly have been broken in low summer 
 waters reflect that you might easily have fared 
 no better with the strongest gut, and that with it 
 you would probably never have hooked the fish 
 at all, nor had the fun of his fight and loss. 
 
 But for very low, clear water a very light line 
 is almost as important as thin gut. Not only is the 
 splash of its fall much less, but the feebler current 
 can float a light line and give the fly a lively 
 motion when the ordinary salmon line is almost 
 useless except in the rush of the streams. How- 
 ever, when in despair you have taken to your 
 small flies and trout tackle, it is worth while 
 occasionally to try a big salmon fly in the streams. 
 Occasionally a fish that has not seen a big fly for 
 some time will seize one in the very smallest water.
 
 PRICKED FISH 33 
 
 When you have risen a fish and failed to hook him, 
 you may be in doubt as to what is the best thing 
 to do. If he has been pricked he may come again, 
 but he is not likely to do so. But the mere fact 
 that you have had a hard pull is nothing against 
 the fish taking the fly again. I have taken a fish 
 at the fourth offer which had taken my fly hard 
 three times within as many minutes. Sometimes 
 they will again take the fly cast to them instantly, 
 and some people advise a long wait, but personally 
 I almost always remain where I am, pull in three 
 or four yards of line at the reel, and from the same 
 stand fish down to the fish by letting out at each 
 case about a yard of the line drawn in. If that 
 fails, and I do not want to fish on, I go out of the 
 stream and begin twenty yards higher up and fish 
 down to him again. 
 
 c
 
 IV 
 
 ON FLIES 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, Many fishers, after learning to 
 make a cast, think that the flies are everything. 
 There are some even who think that success is to 
 be had only with double hooks, or with some 
 spinning head or some fanciful ' short rising ' hook 
 of monstrous shape. Still more salmon fishers, 
 however, pin their faith to an endless variety of 
 gorgeous flies with charming names names that 
 plainly speak their real use and object, that is, to 
 catch the fisher, not the fish. These names are 
 themselves a comedy. 
 
 Some are truculent, as Butcher, Bull-dog, 
 Thunder and Lightning, Black Dose carrying in 
 their names the idea of triumphant compulsion 
 brought to bear upon the unfortunate salmon. 
 Others are romantic, as Fairy, Silver Grey, Green 
 Highlander, Golden Eagle, Snowfly, Kate. Others 
 recall the deeds of legendary heroes, such as Jock 
 Scott, Popham, Wilkinson. Their varieties, or 
 supposed varieties, run into thousands, and the 
 whole lot show plainly that the fisher is quite as 
 gullible as the fish. 
 
 In a recent book on Salmon Fishing, there 
 are some really beautiful coloured plates of
 
 FLIES 35 
 
 seventy-two of the best-known salmon flies. 
 For any one who is fond of salmon flies these 
 wonderful plates make the book a delightful 
 possession. But the author, Mr. Hodgson, excuses 
 himself for confining his list to so small a number 
 of patterns, and he ' ventures to hope ' that 
 these flies would be a sufficient outfit to enable 
 one to fish on any ordinary river in the United 
 Kingdom. But just imagine the fisher hunting 
 through a box containing half a dozen flies of each 
 pattern or of a quarter of the patterns. And 
 any one who looks at these beautifully coloured 
 flies must see that most of them are of precisely 
 similar type, and dozens of them are for all 
 practical fishing purposes identical all dressed 
 with the same general type of heavy mixed wing, 
 with its yellow topping of golden pheasant, and 
 a golden yellow tail, and the bodies shrouded by a 
 thick and heavy hackle varying only in shades. 
 
 In shape and general design the professional fly 
 tier commonly makes but little variation, and his 
 numberless patterns differ from one another only 
 in a few minor details of their multi-coloured 
 gaudiness. In truth, a good fisher with only 
 half a dozen patterns of really varied flies is, so far 
 as catching salmon goes, not one whit behind the 
 man who arms himself with every fly and angling 
 ' requisite ' that Hardy or Farlow or Malloch will 
 so cheerfully sell to him. 
 
 But I do not wish to sneer at the possessor of 
 many flies. There are plenty of keen fishers to
 
 36 ON FLIES 
 
 whom the making or collecting of workmanlike 
 flies is in itself a labour of love, but I think it is 
 generally true that the better the fisher and the 
 greater his opportunities of fishing, the fewer are 
 the flies that you shall find him using certainly 
 it is so with the most skilful fishers that I have 
 known. 
 
 THE CHOICE OF FLIES 
 
 In my own opinion, if a fly is neat and workman- 
 like, well shaped, and with wing and hackle dressed 
 sufficiently lightly to play freely in the water, it is 
 of comparatively small importance after what 
 pattern or of what colours the various parts are 
 composed. There are, of course, points upon 
 which some variety is obviously desirable. In big 
 waters, or in waters stained with mud or with peat 
 from moorland streams, one instinctively feels 
 that the fly should be large and bright in order 
 that it may be seen by as many fish as possible. 
 Salmon have wonderfully good sight at all times 
 of the day and night, and even in stained or muddy 
 water they can see the fly in an astonishing way. 
 Still, if fish are ever to be tempted to take the fly, 
 the first essential is that they should see it ; and 
 so one demands some flies that shall be good to 
 see. For this purpose I use either a Jock Scott or 
 a sort of Silver Wilkinson, a silver body dressed 
 with a white or pale blue hackle, and having a 
 turkey wing with two large, bright jungle cocks 
 over it. Then one wants some dark, sober fly as a
 
 A SELECT FEW 37 
 
 contrast to the former ones in order to make a 
 change rather for the fisher than for the fish 
 when the bright flies have been well tried and have 
 proved for the time being unable to attract the 
 fish. For this purpose I generally use a fly with 
 a rather rough body of claret wool, and with a 
 claret hackle and a mallard wing, or else a very 
 similar fly with a smooth body of port-wine 
 coloured silk and a ' pigeon's blood ' hackle, with 
 brown or dun turkey wings. With a few flies of 
 each type Jock Scott, Silver body, and Claret 
 I should be well content to tackle a day's fishing, 
 ay, or a week's or a month's fishing on any river 
 whatever, unless it were very low and clear. 
 Then I should like to have the choice of about 
 three more flies the port fly described above, a 
 sober little fly with dun turkey wing and rough 
 black and orange-brown body, known to me as 
 a ' Gipps/ and a green heckam-peckam. 
 
 In the matter of flies I am therefore a heretic 
 who thinks nothing of fishing through a long day 
 without changing the fly more than once, and who 
 would almost equally value his chances of taking 
 fish with any well-dressed fly not excessive in size 
 and gaudiness. But salmon, even on the good 
 days, do not take every five minutes, and it is 
 more satisfactory to be using a fly in which you 
 have full confidence. If the fish will not take a 
 fly with which you have lately done well, you feel 
 confident that it is because they are not in taking 
 humour. But with a new and untried pattern of 
 
 C2
 
 38 ON FLIES 
 
 fly hope soon gives place to doubt, and doubt 
 quickly leads to dismissal in favour, as Mr. 
 Dooley said of the anti-Dreyfus witnesses, of some 
 ' thried and thrusted perjurer/ 
 
 You will soon, and often, go through the stage 
 when after some lucky day you pin your faith to, 
 and for long catch nearly all your fish upon, some 
 one fly which later on you have given up, and which 
 now is rarely used and lightly valued. Even now 
 looking at one's fishing-books, one sees that for long 
 periods, or even for a whole season, one fly has been 
 by far the most successful. Then another old 
 favourite has a lucky turn, and for weeks together 
 nearly everything is caught upon that pattern, 
 and for the same reason as before, namely, that 
 you have given it the first trial every day, and 
 have never changed it for another unless the fish 
 were not taking. 1 
 
 I should advise you not to pay overmuch 
 attention to the maxims current among salmon 
 fishers as to what fly you should use or what you 
 should do in this event or in that. For instance, 
 you will be told, ' Always use big flies in spring, 
 small flies in summer and autumn ' ; ' Never cast 
 again over a risen or pricked fish until you have 
 given him five minutes' rest/ or ' have smoked a 
 pipe,' or ' have changed your fly for a smaller one,' 
 or what not ; ' Always use bright flies on a bright 
 day, dark flies on a dark day,' and so on. Now 
 
 1 I see that in the season of 1897 all my salmon were caught on 
 four flies only ; Jock Scott, claret, white and silver, and Gipps.
 
 FISHING MAXIMS 39 
 
 these maxims, and many more like them, are all 
 very well. They are well known and deeply 
 revered amongst anglers, but I often wonder 
 whether the poor misguided salmon is always 
 quite sure of the path of duty thus laid down for 
 him. They remind me of the story of the French 
 visitor who showed some alarm at the prospect of 
 passing a savage-looking dog that stood in the 
 way, barking furiously. ' It 's all right/ said his 
 host ; ' don't you know the proverb " Barking dogs 
 don't bite " ? ' ' Ah, yes ! ' says the Frenchman, 
 ' I know ze proverbe, and you know ze proverbe, 
 but ze question is does ze dog know ze proverbe ? ' 
 Such maxims may be good rough working rules, 
 but one thing you may be sure of about a salmon, 
 you never can tell either what he will do, or when 
 he will do it, and if the fish doesn't come when 
 invited in what you consider the orthodox manner, 
 don't give him up, but try him in the most un- 
 orthodox way that you can think of, and I should 
 suggest, to begin with, an absurdly small fly and 
 fine tackle, and keep your very small flies, unless 
 they have metal eyes, ready on a strand of gut, 
 carefully tied before you go out, so that they 
 may be well tied on and changed the more 
 easily.
 
 STRIKING THE FISH 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, All kinds of views are held as to 
 the necessity or otherwise of striking, that is to 
 say, of intentionally jerking the rod so that the 
 point and barb of the hook may be buried in the 
 fish's jaw. 
 
 One school of fishers holds that you must never 
 strike when salmon fishing, that the salmon hooks 
 himself. Another, that you should always strike 
 ' from the reel,' as they express it ; that is to say, 
 leaving the line loose and free to run off the reel 
 as you strike. Others hold that you should 
 always strike a salmon just as you would strike 
 in trout fishing, although not so quickly. 
 
 These differences, like so many other of our 
 disputes, exist to a large extent upon confusion of 
 terms. The disputants are often referring to 
 different methods of fishing, and they mean differ- 
 ent things by the word ' strike.' The man who 
 fishes deep with his rod almost horizontal, and so 
 with the point low, will rarely see the fish rise. 
 His first knowledge of the fish is the pull on the 
 line, and if he has had the skill to keep a good taut 
 line, nothing more will be needed to drive his hook 
 home than simply to raise the rod point. This 
 
 40
 
 WHEN FISHING DEEP 41 
 
 should be done quickly, but anything like a jerk 
 would, in a strong water, probably result in the 
 fisher breaking the gut and leaving his fly in the 
 fish's mouth. The effect of a sudden jerk upward 
 given to a heavy salmon rod held almost horizontal 
 is to pull up the butt, but at first to depress the 
 rod point, which then flies up, putting on a far 
 greater strain than the excited fisher either 
 intends or realises. You, my boys, will strike 
 thus with a violent jerk often enough, and will 
 lose your fly many times before your nerves are 
 always steady when they feel the savage snatch of 
 an unexpected salmon. 
 
 By the prompt, firm raising of the rod point the 
 fisher in this style has struck sufficiently ; he has 
 driven the hook home into the struggling fish, 
 and he needs no sharp stroke like that given by the 
 trout fisher with his quick turn of the wrist. But 
 on the few occasions when the young angler in 
 this style does actually see the great boil of a 
 rising salmon, he will generally strike instinctively 
 and as I have both seen and done will very 
 often strike too soon. 
 
 The man, on the other hand, who fishes with rod 
 point raised and fly near the surface as in trouting 
 (a very good way, too, in clear water), will constantly 
 see the rise ; see the salmon like a great trout 
 boiling up at his fly, and indeed he will often see 
 the wave caused by the fish coming to or following 
 his fly. In order to drive the hook home when 
 fishing thus, with rod-top raised, a sharp, quick
 
 42 STRIKING THE FISH 
 
 stroke is needed owing to the strain falling upon 
 the thin and yielding top of the rod c But the 
 beginner in this style will very quickly find that 
 if he strikes the moment that he sees the boil, he 
 will often fail to hook the fish, or even to feel any 
 touch at all. If, however, he waits until the fish 
 has begun to go down again, he will very rarely 
 fail to strike the hook in firmly. He should wait 
 perhaps two seconds. The best idea that I can 
 give you of the time is this. You see the boil and 
 then you count quietly, one two strike. The 
 fish appears to be then about two feet below the 
 surface, as you can often judge by the gut, as your 
 strike lifts it partly out of the water. You will 
 very rarely fail to hook him if he has ever touched 
 the fly. But in swift water, and more especially in 
 quick, glassy runs, the fish seem to take the fly more 
 firmly, and you can safely strike more quickly. 
 
 The course that you, my boys, should take, until 
 you see reason to think that you know a better 
 one, is this : 
 
 When fishing deep, in strong water, the moment 
 you feel the pull, tighten firmly on the fish. If in 
 rather slow water, give a much sharper pull, 
 especially if the hook is a large one. 
 
 If fishing in low water or indeed in any but the 
 swiftest water with the fly kept near the surface, 
 then, when you see the rise, count ' one two,' and 
 then (at ' three ') strike sharply. But if your first 
 knowledge of the rise is a pull, or a stopping of the 
 line, then strike instantly.
 
 LARGE HOOKS 43 
 
 In all cases, even when fishing deep, if the fish 
 takes the fly after the top is raised in order to make 
 the backward cast, then strike sharply on the 
 touch. 
 
 When fishing with large hooks or with double 
 hooks it is advisable, unless the fly has been taken 
 savagely with a violent pull, to make sure that a 
 marked and heavy pull is given to the fly as soon 
 as possible after you have felt the fish. This is 
 in order to ensure driving the hooks home. A 
 few trials with a fly placed in the mouth of a dead 
 salmon freshly caught will soon convince you that 
 a good deal of force is required to drive a large 
 hook into the firmer parts of the jaw even if the 
 gut be held near the fly. Still more is it so if about 
 twenty-five yards of line is let out and the effect 
 of a pull made with the rod is tested upon the dead 
 fish's mouth. It will be found that often the barb 
 has not been buried in the fish, and if alive and 
 thrashing about with open mouth, he very probably 
 would have twisted out the point and would have 
 escaped. 
 
 That fish, in the effort to get rid of the fly in their 
 mouths, do as one would expect struggle and 
 twist about with mouth wide open, I have myself 
 seen several times when a bright sun shining into a 
 clear water below a high bank has enabled the 
 early struggles of the hooked fish to be seen with 
 great distinctness. 
 
 In experimenting with a dead fish one curious 
 thing will be noticed. The fly, if hooked into the
 
 44 STRIKING THE FISH 
 
 tongue the very thing which one would expect 
 the downward-hanging hook to pierce will rather 
 easily tear out, splitting the tongue as it does so. 
 No doubt it is for this reason that one so rarely 
 lands a fish hooked in the tongue. I never 
 remember doing so on a salmon rod unless the 
 hook has been fixed right at the root or back of the 
 tongue. This splitting of the tongue probably 
 explains some of those vexatious losses of fish 
 apparently well hooked, which nevertheless escape, 
 after a few violent struggles. 
 
 Another thing that you must remember, my 
 boys, is this : Never use a blunt hook. Always 
 keep in your pocket or in your fly-case a small 
 slip of hard whetstone to keep the point of your 
 hooks as keen as it is possible to have them. The 
 skin within a salmon's mouth is smooth and 
 slippery, and the hook should have a needle point. 
 
 I advise you not to practise striking from the 
 reel unless you find your nerves so ' jumpy ' that 
 you cannot trust yourself to hold the line. But 
 you should so hold the line that as soon as the pull 
 or strike is over, or even before, if the fish should 
 give a sudden savage snatch, the line may be 
 taken off the reel. And that is done by holding 
 one or when you are more experienced and hold 
 the rod as I do both forefingers over the line in 
 the following way. You grasp the rod firmly as 
 if to cast, leaving the line quite free. Then 
 detach the forefinger and hook it over the line, 
 closing it again beside the other fingers closely
 
 HARLING 45 
 
 upon the rod, so that now the line goes under the 
 forefinger and over the three others. Then on a 
 sudden or heavy pull the line will easily and 
 instinctively be allowed to lift the forefinger and 
 thus permit the reel to run. Never under any 
 circumstances have the line twisted round a finger 
 unless you want it broken. 
 
 I believe that both in harling and in trolling for 
 salmon it is the practice to strike violently on 
 awaking to the discovery that a fish has at last 
 come to break the peaceful monotony of those cold 
 and dreary pursuits.
 
 VI 
 
 ON PLAYING A SALMON 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, I want to give you some advice 
 on the playing of a salmon when you have hooked 
 him, and there are several points that you must be 
 careful to attend to. 
 
 Hold the rod up. This, above all other things, is 
 what you must remember to do. From the moment 
 after the fish is hooked until the moment he is 
 gaffed you should never, unless the fish is in the 
 act of leaping out of the water, cease to hold the 
 rod well up, the butt at or near the perpendicular. 
 For when the rod is lowered towards the fish the 
 lightness of play of the top joints is gone, and the 
 gut is very apt to be broken. A much shorter 
 yielding on the part of the fish permits the top to 
 straighten and releases the pull of the rod alto- 
 gether, whilst a very short rush passes from the 
 stage where the rod is exerting no strain at all to 
 the point where the pull, coming mainly upon the 
 butt and middle joints, is the very heaviest that 
 the rod can give. 
 
 Next, watch the fish most carefully. If you see 
 him leap out of the water, drop your point in- 
 stantly, and raise it as soon as he has fallen into the 
 water again. I was inclined, once, to neglect this 
 
 46
 
 NEVER LET HIM REST 47 
 
 traditional piece of advice as unnecessary, but paid 
 the penalty in several broken hooks and lost fish, 
 and soon returned to it again. If you feel a sudden 
 quick rush, look out for a leap to follow it. 
 
 Never let the fish rest. When the fish is rushing 
 about and fighting hard, put no strain on it, but 
 keep the line taut, and keep as near as possible to 
 your fish. Always, too, keep the line well reeled 
 up so as to have as little line dragging in the water 
 as possible. When he makes a rush, let him go 
 even give him line pulled off the reel by your hand. 
 But the very moment he slackens his efforts, pull 
 him and worry him into action, and in a very short 
 time he will be yours. Of the many hundreds of 
 fish that I have caught I have never had one fish 
 sulk, and this I believe to be due almost entirely 
 to a habit of never allowing the fish to rest until 
 the fight is done. When the tired fish attempts 
 a run you may easily turn him by putting the 
 rod down-stream and holding it low, and thus 
 pulling his head from the down-stream side, when 
 he will almost always circle round and come nearer 
 to the fisherman, and will very soon lose his courage 
 at such treatment. By this particular manoeuvre 
 you can bring in a slow, sluggish fish in very 
 quick time. In the old days when men caught 
 salmon on the ' loop ' rod, without a reel, they used 
 to make a great point of keeping rather below the 
 fish, and there is little doubt that that is the most 
 advantageous place for the angler. As I have said, 
 you should do everything you can to keep near the
 
 48 ON PLAYING A SALMON 
 
 fish and to prevent him having a very long line 
 out if it can be helped. But at the same time you 
 must take care not to have him on a very short line 
 until he is ready to come to the gaff. If he is 
 within anything like a rod's length of the top ring, 
 he is too close. If he is swimming deep, this does 
 not matter, but to have a fish reeled up close that 
 is splashing and struggling near the surface is to 
 invite a break and to deserve one. Similarly, when 
 the fish is tired and you have to reel him up short 
 in order to use the gaff or net, never hold his head 
 out of the water. Never let the rod point be 
 directly above the fish to be lifting him out of the 
 water, but keep it either down-stream or up- 
 stream of the fish, so that the pull of the gut is not 
 a lifting pull. If the fish is being lifted, and he 
 begins to kick and splash, as he will do to jigger, 
 as it is called the jerking on the line is very 
 sudden, and constantly snaps either the line, the 
 hook, or else the hold that the hook had in the fish. 
 Enormous numbers of grilse and small, active 
 salmon are lost in this way every season. If you 
 hook a very active fish on fine tackle when fishing 
 with a big rod, his wild leaps and rushes will make 
 you tremble for the safety of your gut, especially 
 if the fish takes a lot of line. A great deal may be 
 done to ease the strain by keeping as near as 
 possible to the fish, even by wading into the water 
 again, and holding the rod very high and very close 
 to the butt with both hands. I have caught large 
 salmon on an eighteen-foot-six rod with a cast
 
 LOST FISH 49 
 
 tipped with three feet of plain trout gut, but then, 
 when using such gut, I put the button of the rod in 
 one palm and hold the rod close above the reel with 
 my other hand, playing the fish almost entirely 
 upon the top joint, and if the trout gut is sound 
 the rod will manage it perfectly. 
 
 If you do hook a big fish he may take hours 
 to land if you don't worry him enough. But if 
 you have to leave him, don't cut your line ; put 
 down your rod and haul him in by hand. Some 
 monks who have a house on Loch Ness have a 
 stuffed salmon that they netted in 1907 which 
 weighed 37^ Ibs. In his mouth was a minnow 
 attached to over thirty yards of line, and on 
 inquiry they heard that, a few days before, an 
 old gentleman had hooked this fish and played 
 it for several hours, and then, cold and tired 
 out, had cut his line and gone home. Some of 
 the lost fish really are big, you see. 
 
 A still more grievous loss happened to a dis- 
 tinguished barrister now in a high official position. 
 Fishing one afternoon in the Forde River in 
 Norway he hooked a great salmon, and twice he 
 had the fish almost within reach of the gaff. 
 Twice the gaffer went out, and with a longer 
 gaff would probably have got him. As it was, 
 he just failed to reach the fish, and it never again 
 allowed itself to be brought near the shore. The 
 rod was a light one and the tackle fine, and the 
 fight lasted for six mortal hours, but at last in 
 the darkness the gut was broken by the weight 
 
 D
 
 50 ON PLAYING A SALMON 
 
 of the exhausted fish swept down by the strong 
 stream, and half a mile below where he was 
 hooked. The next day the angler went home, 
 and the day after that the Norwegian boatmen 
 netted the pool where he had been hooked, and 
 there caught the fish. It weighed over fifty 
 pounds and still carried the fly, which they 
 returned to its owner. 
 
 When wading, if you hook a fish, do not, as a rule, 
 begin to move towards the shore until the fish has 
 had his first few plunges and begins to steady 
 himself. But if he begins to tear off line and gets 
 far away from you, go after him as promptly as 
 you can. Never let him have a long line out if 
 that can be avoided. 
 
 After playing should come gaffing, but fish 
 without number are lost every year in the attempt 
 to gaff them. An inexplicable nervousness attacks 
 the beginner, he approaches the fish quietly and 
 confidently, but then he bungles the job most 
 horribly, and in a moment he is making wild 
 rakes at the fish which often end in his gaffing 
 the line and losing the salmon on the spot. The 
 only good advice I can give you is this : Keep 
 the point of the gaff sharp as a needle. Quietly 
 stretch it over the middle of the back of your 
 salmon, and touch his farther side with the point : 
 then give a firm pull not a wild jerk and 
 instantly draw him in, lifting the handle of your 
 gaff as you do it, so that the fish hangs per- 
 pendicularly below it. As you gaff him, drop
 
 GAFFING 51 
 
 your rod forward so as to slacken the gut to the 
 fish's head, or he may break the cast or the 
 rod top. Don't be flurried, and the thing can 
 hardly go wrong. When gaffing for a friend, 
 keep still while he brings the fish to a position 
 where the stroke is a certainty ; take no risks, 
 and when you gaff, do it quietly. 
 
 Andrew Young, in his Angler's Guide to the 
 Rivers and Lochs of the North of Scotland (published 
 in 1857), besides describing minutely all the 
 principal rivers and lakes, has some delightful 
 advice to give as to the best methods of fishing, 
 and his advice, or at any rate some of his advice, 
 shows that we have learnt very little that is new 
 since his day. 
 
 ' I could easily,' he says, ' give a list of the flies 
 likely to kill on these rivers ; but of what use 
 would it be, when we don't see two on the same 
 river use the same kind of flies ? The fact is that 
 the fly that killed the last fish is always considered 
 best, whatever be its shape, size or colour, until 
 some one supersedes it with another. 
 
 ' But I would seriously warn anglers against 
 " striking the fish," and " pulling hard." Striking 
 the fish means giving the rod a sudden upward 
 jerk, as soon as the fish breaks the water to catch 
 the fly. This is a vile practice that has crept in 
 among anglers of late years.' 
 
 Old Andrew, you see, like many other arguers, 
 begins by stating the ' vile practice ' out of court. 
 In salmon fishing no one could defend striking ' as
 
 52 ON PLAYING A SALMON 
 
 soon as the fish breaks the water.' Striking at a 
 rise that you see, but after waiting a couple of 
 seconds to allow the fish to turn with the fly, is a 
 very different matter. He goes on : 
 
 ' And when the fish is hooked be sure that you 
 don't pull hard, for that is a most dangerous 
 practice, by which many a hook and many a fish is 
 lost. . . . 
 
 1 There is some excuse for a young angler losing 
 his first fish in that manner from agitation, and 
 want of the proper weight of his hand ; but when 
 anglers of twenty years' standing, who are con- 
 sidered first-rate casters and hookers of fish, play 
 the fool in that way, they are inexcusable. I have 
 known one good caster and hooker in one month 
 lose ninety fish, all of which were hooked so well 
 that at least eighty would have been landed by 
 any cautious fisher.' Great heavens, one thinks, 
 how many fish were landed in that month by this 
 furious Jehu of the salmon rod. But he goes on : 
 ' I never like to hear of this foolish brag of having 
 landed an eighteen-pound fish in ten minutes, and 
 an eight-pound grilse in five minutes that 's the 
 work of a butcher and not of an angler ; for giving 
 a fish fair play, and an angler fair sport, from 
 thirty to thirty-five minutes is little enough time 
 to play a fish of eighteen pounds. Some may take 
 more, but few less, with fair play, and from 
 fifteen to twenty minutes for a grilse.' 
 
 Again, ' We would also warn the young angler 
 against endeavouring to cast a long line, for that
 
 ANDREW YOUNG 53 
 
 is a besetting fault in new beginners. They see a 
 long-practised hand spin the fly almost across the 
 river, and they think that doing the same would 
 constitute them anglers all at once. But in that 
 they are grossly mistaken ; for with a long slack 
 line fish can never be hooked, for the current 
 forces the unbent middle of the line down the 
 stream, dragging the fly down after it, and en- 
 tirely preventing the proper working of the 
 line/ 
 
 It is curious to see that already in 1857 he can 
 recommend playing the fly a little as it hangs after 
 coming out of the current, and can also say that 
 ' Some are in the habit of commencing near the 
 lower end of the pool and fishing backwards 
 against the stream.' Quite lately we have heard 
 this method extolled, and proclaimed as a wonder- 
 ful new-found Halliday. I believe that it is 
 quite a sensible experiment to make on a hopeless 
 day, but Andrew viewed it very justly as 
 ' a reprehensible practice, for it exhibits the 
 splash of the line to the fish when they should only 
 see the fly.' He insists most vigorously that the 
 only proper way to fish a salmon pool is ' to 
 remove never more than a yard at one time, 
 always giving three offers of the fly at each 
 removal/ If you raise no fish he tells you to 
 ' rest ten minutes, change your fly for one of a 
 quite opposite colour, and fish over the pool a 
 second time with the same care/ ' Some anglers/ 
 he says, after an exhortation against haste, ' run 
 
 D2
 
 54 ON PLAYING A SALMON 
 
 over the best pools with only a few casts and then 
 declare that there are no fish in the pool ; but the 
 patient angler finds fish there as soon as Mr. 
 Short-Temper leaves it.' 
 
 His ' concluding advice to the young angler ' is 
 quite delightful. After telling him to be sure at 
 night to dry his flies and his line, and to examine 
 both line and gut carefully, he adds this : ' Send 
 the gilly early to bed, and be sure not to drink that 
 stuff that they compound of whisky, sugar, and 
 boiling water. It is bad for muddling the brain, 
 and angling requires a clear brain.' 
 
 You will see that Andrew and I do not see eye 
 to eye on a good many points. He is horrified at 
 the very thought of killing a fish quickly, although 
 that is not done by ' pulling hard,' but by never 
 allowing the fish to take a moment's rest.
 
 VII 
 
 THE SENSE OF PAIN IN FISH 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, You will often hear fishermen 
 debating the question whether fish feel pain. It 
 is not that anybody, so far as I know, thinks that 
 fish are wholly proof against the feeling of pain, 
 but many people believe that fish are much less 
 sensible of pain than are warm-blooded animals 
 such as we are. Seeing a long and frantic struggle 
 for life on the part of a beautiful creature which 
 has never given the smallest cause of offence to 
 mankind, a humane fisher is forced to consider 
 whether he is being guilty of wanton cruelty ; 
 whether, if he must take fish in order to eat them, 
 he is justified in taking them with the rod, instead 
 of by some means that is either painless such as 
 stunning them by the use of dynamite or shooting 
 them or whereby death at least is quickly over, 
 such as spearing them or taking them with a draft 
 net. No doubt the 'angler puts himself upon his 
 trial with every intention of securing his own ac- 
 quittal if it be possible. But is he really guilty ? 
 The very thought of using, against a salmon, 
 such devices as dynamite, nets, traps, or spears, 
 is revolting to a man who loves, or perhaps thinks 
 that he loves, the salmon, and who feels angry and 
 
 55
 
 56 THE SENSE OF PAIN IN FISH 
 
 disgusted every time that he sees one of those 
 pictures of their wholesale slaughter in such places 
 as the salmon canneries of British Columbia. 
 Why ? Is it merely a selfish desire to capture the 
 fish ourselves, or is it that we feel that a noble fish, 
 even when we need him for food, should have the 
 much greater chance of escape that the rod gives 
 him as compared with the murderous bars of the 
 salmon trap or the toils of the deadly net ? It is 
 not merely that the rod gives him a fair chance of 
 escape after he has been hooked ; it does not, like 
 the net or the fish trap, sweep the fish off wholesale 
 from the pools or from the narrows through which 
 they are compelled to pass. The rod can take only 
 such fish as are disposed to seize the fly or bait, and 
 we all know that at times such fish are rare indeed, 
 and at no time do they form, I believe, any large 
 proportion of the fish present in the pools. 
 
 Anglers are not, as a rule, men given to cruelty 
 in the affairs of life, and yet the fear of possible 
 cruelty in fishing does not impress them as a real 
 one. Some cruelty must be involved in causing 
 the death of any creature, and so long as humane 
 men and women desire to eat slaughtered sheep, 
 cattle, poultry, game, and fish, the angler need not 
 much concern himself beyond proving that his 
 sport involves no greater cruelty than this. A 
 great accumulation of instances in which fish seem 
 to have shown an almost complete indifference to 
 wounds or injuries that would cause extreme agony 
 to warm-blooded animals, seems to establish as a
 
 ACTUAL INSTANCES 57 
 
 fact that fish are comparatively insensible to 
 pain. 
 
 I have myself hooked a fine spring salmon of 
 about 18 Ibs., which, after taking the fly with a 
 firm pull, merely sank with it to the bottom of 
 the river, and gave no sign of feeling anything 
 unusual. As I was wading in deep and difficult 
 water, the first thing was to get into the shallows 
 and shorten the line, and then I gave a good sharp 
 pull at the fish. Nothing happened. I gave 
 another and a more severe pull, now almost 
 doubting whether the fish was still on, or whether 
 by any chance it had left the fly in some new and 
 uncharted snag. That doubt did not last long. 
 At the third pull the fish bolted past me up the 
 deep stream, then turned and dashed slanting 
 across to the far side of the river, repeatedly rising 
 to the surface and wallowing along half out of the 
 water at every few yards. Off ran the forty yards 
 of casting line, but still the fish held on for some 
 rocky shallows, whilst the thin silk backing cut 
 the forefinger that was trying to check it. He 
 won. No sooner did he get amongst the boulders 
 than he got the line round one of them, and, with a 
 few splashing plunges, he broke me and departed. 
 Luckily the line came free, and with it came back 
 the large claret fly that he had taken, but with the 
 hook now snapped off just at the tail of the fly. 
 It must have gone firmly into some pretty tough 
 spot to break at such a place. 
 
 From his behaviour it is hard to think that this
 
 58 THE SENSE OF PAIN IN FISH 
 
 fish felt much pain from the hook, and his vigorous 
 and effective line of action after the third pull 
 was given to him may have been due quite as 
 much to realising that some fisher had got hold of 
 him, as to any feeling of pain from the extra pull 
 at the hook, when he had shown none at the first 
 or the second pull. 
 
 A similar thing happened to me on September 
 30, 1905, when fishing with a phantom minnow 
 on a falling flood in a heavy black water with a 
 good deal of mud still in it. On the shallow edge 
 at the far side of some very heavy water I hooked 
 what I felt sure was a good fish. I thought that I 
 had felt the quiver of life, but a full minute's 
 tugging convinced me that I must have been 
 mistaken, and I had actually taken the line in my 
 hand to drag the hooks off the bottom or to break 
 away, when the line calmly moved off into deep 
 water. This time also, as luck would have it, 
 I lost the fish, as he succeeded about ten minutes 
 later in getting round a point some distance below, 
 where it was not possible to follow him. But he 
 was a strong one, and he was a very heavy one. 
 
 Another instance I know of, which happened to 
 an angler who was fishing some water below me. 
 He hooked a fish which went straightway back to 
 his lying-place on the bottom and sulked there for 
 an hour before he could be induced to move. 
 Then, in due time, he was landed and was found 
 to weigh 28 Ibs. He was hooked in the point 
 of the lower jaw. One cannot imagine any warm-
 
 SALMON TAKING WASP 59 
 
 blooded animal, hooked in the nose or mouth or 
 ear or in any other place, however gristly, which 
 could without a single preliminary struggle calmly 
 stay where he was and allow his captor to tug and 
 pull at him to his heart's content. One would 
 suppose that ' sulking ' would be almost impossible 
 if the salmon felt acute pain from the repeated 
 tugging at the hook. Yet fish do sulk often 
 enough although, in fact, it has never happened 
 to me to have one do so. And people who, in 
 clear water, have been able to see the sulking fish, 
 say that he may be seen poised head downwards, 
 with his nose on the gravel and his tail gently 
 waving to keep him down against the pull of the 
 rod. Such conduct does not suggest any acute 
 pain. 
 
 One knows, too, that a salmon will frequently 
 take a fly several times, and sometimes even after 
 he has had a very sharp prick. Once in the month 
 of August 1890 I was fishing a quiet glassy pool, 
 bent on catching a large fish weighing, as I judged, 
 close on 30 Ibs., that I had seen and tried so often 
 that I knew his position almost to a yard. The 
 river was low and clear, and I had to wade out 
 with great care to avoid making a ripple. Just 
 as I got to the place from which I had hoped to 
 cover him, I saw a wasp fall into the river and go 
 drifting down, buzzing upon the surface of the 
 water straight over the salmon. As I watched it 
 in the bright sunshine, a big shoulder rose quietly 
 out of the water, followed by a black tail, and down
 
 60 THE SENSE OF PAIN IN FISH 
 
 went my friend the wasp, and he certainly did not 
 come to the surface again. Thereupon I changed 
 my tiny silver fly for a small black and orange fly 
 with dun turkey wings known as a ' Gipps/ and 
 with it at once hooked my friend. Now that fish 
 had no fear of a wasp. Of course he may have 
 crushed it instantly in his jaws, but it is an 
 experiment that no warm-blooded animal cares 
 to try twice, although every puppy has generally 
 tried it once. And wasps are abundant by the 
 river-side in August, and it is not likely that this 
 was the first that my friend had ever taken. I 
 wish I had been able to cut him open and so per- 
 haps prove that he had swallowed this wasp, but 
 I did not succeed in landing him. 
 
 I have only once taken a salmon that had any 
 tackle upon him ; and then it was merely some 
 trout fisher's March brown, with a foot of gut 
 attached to it and left in the mouth of a i5~lb. 
 fish ; but there have been endless well-proved 
 instances of fish being taken with not only flies 
 but even worm-hooks and spinning traces still 
 about or inside them, as witnesses of some former 
 escape. And, with a worm, I have taken a large 
 trout of about 2 Ibs. weight, which had six inches 
 of gut hanging out of his mouth, and had in his 
 stomach a big hook with a worm still upon it that 
 had been lost not twenty minutes previously by a 
 schoolboy one of your uncles who had hooked 
 and lost the trout before asking me to try him. 
 Some twenty or more times I have seen salmon
 
 SCROPE 61 
 
 taken upon a fly notwithstanding that they had 
 frightful raw wounds upon their bodies caused by 
 seals or porpoises. Now it is pretty clearly proved 
 that a fish whilst in the river does not take food 
 because it must eat to live, but, at the most, from 
 greed only, or possibly from curiosity or destructive- 
 ness. Well, just imagine a man, not starving, not 
 even hungry, and with a dreadful, unhealed wound 
 in his body, yet ready to leap up or to rush about 
 to get a single cherry. 
 
 Nearly every one who considers the matter is 
 forced to the conclusion that the salmon suffers 
 very little direct pain, and that the distress of its 
 struggles to escape capture is not very serious 
 when compared with its drowning, held fast by 
 the gills in a stake net, or its savage mauling by 
 seals or porpoises. Some men go further and 
 point out that the salmon himself is the savage and 
 relentless foe of the herring and the smaller fry, 
 and even of the young of his own species, and that 
 he is captured in the very act of trying to kill 
 what he thinks is some beautiful creature swim- 
 ming through the pool. The locus classicus is a 
 well-known passage in the Days and Nights of 
 Salmon Fishing, 1 which I will quote again in order 
 that you may be induced to read the whole book. 
 
 Scrope says at the beginning of Chapter iv : 
 ' Let us see how the case stands. I take a little 
 
 1 Published in 1835. Reprinted with only two plates in 1854 
 (the edition which we have), but a very good and cheap reprint was 
 published in 1885.
 
 62 THE SENSE OF PAIN IN FISH 
 
 wool and feather, and, tying it in a particular 
 manner upon a hook, make an imitation of a fly ; 
 then I throw it across the river and let it sweep 
 round the stream with a lively motion. This I 
 have an undoubted right to do, for the river 
 belongs to me or my friend ; but mark what 
 follows. Up starts a monster fish with his 
 murderous jaws, and makes a dash at my little 
 Andromeda. Thus he is the aggressor, not I ; 
 his intention is evidently to commit murder. 
 He is caught in the act of putting that intention 
 into execution. Having wantonly intruded him- 
 self on my hook, which I contend he had no right 
 to do, he darts about in various directions, evi- 
 dently surprised to find that the fly, which he 
 hoped to make an easy conquest of, is much 
 stronger than himself. I naturally attempt to 
 regain this fly, unjustly withheld from me. The 
 fish gets tired and weak in his lawless endeavours 
 to deprive me of it. I take advantage of his 
 weakness, I own, and drag him, somewhat loth, 
 to the shore, where one rap on his head ends him 
 in an instant/
 
 VIII 
 
 SPRING FISHING 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, One good day's salmon fishing 
 in spring is worth a week in the late autumn, and 
 I would not exchange one brilliant glittering spring 
 salmon for half a dozen autumn fish, or for half 
 a score of the hideous red sharks that one often 
 catches at the end of October, not to speak of the 
 month of November, where November fishing is 
 lawful. The spring fish is quite a different creature, 
 and he can be inexpressibly more brilliant and 
 more beautiful than the average autumn fish, 
 although there are, of course, spring fish long up 
 from the sea that are by no means so glittering 
 as the best fish are. 
 
 Then you are fishing for the spring salmon in a 
 time of hope and joy, and of budding leaves and 
 singing birds, and at the beginning of a new salmon 
 season when the mere casting of the fly again is a 
 perfect holiday. But though you may get then 
 some of the fairest days of the whole year, you may 
 equally, in spring, get some of the foulest, so far 
 as weather goes. I will tell you of a week's spring 
 fishing. 
 
 The Easter of 1908 was a late one, but in weather 
 it was much more like Christmas. On the 
 
 63
 
 64 SPRING FISHING 
 
 Saturday after Easter they had a foot of snow in 
 Oxford, and in Hampshire there was even more. 
 I went north with a friend for seven days' fishing, 
 and we had blustering north or north-east winds 
 and repeated snow showers every day. But the 
 salmon seemed to like it ; and four or five were 
 taken in the very worst moments, whilst we fought 
 our way down the pools against blinding showers 
 of snow and sleet. At such times a savage snatch 
 often finds you unprepared. I was using some 
 gut, stout enough, but bought ten years ago, 
 and during that week I left four flies in fish 
 whether in kelts or in spring fish I cannot tell, but 
 one always hopes that a very violent tug comes 
 from a good, clean fish. In very stormy winds, 
 when you are using your heaviest line, it is worth 
 while to remember that the force of the strike 
 upon the gut is much more sudden and more 
 violent than it is with a lighter and more springy 
 line, and unless care and sound tackle be used 
 you will often be left, as I was, to grieve over the 
 loss of both fish and fly. 
 
 However, this Easter, the only fly that the fish 
 seemed ready to take was a large, blood-coloured 
 claret with a thick, rough body, a broad silver rib 
 and a plain turkey or mallard wing set on low like 
 the wings of a bee or a stone-fly. With this fly 
 I began to fish early on the Saturday in a bitter 
 grey north wind. At the third pool I was just 
 picking my steps through some willows growing 
 among the rocks on the bank when, in the thin
 
 FIRST DAY OF THE SEASON 65 
 
 glassy slide at the tail of the pool there was a swirl, 
 a pull, and a few rolling plunges, and my first fish 
 of 1908 had come and gone. . . . Well, this is 
 black luck, but it shows that there J s one good fish 
 up, and there may be more ; so on to the next pool. 
 There, near the top of it, just as the fly swings 
 out of the current and is carefully see-sawed 
 alongside a ragged mass of logs sunk in the water, 
 there comes a slight draw so slight that it might 
 easily pass unnoticed. A quick stroke, however, 
 reveals the unmistakable quiver of life, and after 
 a few deep struggles, which just show as oily 
 swirls upon the quieter water beside the stream, 
 a great fish dashes into the heavy current and goes 
 down on the top of it, walloping over and over, 
 and tearing the line with short screeches off the 
 reel. This, at any rate, is no kelt. After a 
 stubborn sporting run in the course of which he 
 twice goes up into the pool above only to dash 
 back down the rapids, and in which he repeatedly 
 tries to take refuge amongst the snags which line 
 the steep bank, he gives a chance and is gaffed. 
 Sure enough he is a clean fish of 17, 18, or 19 Ibs. ; 1 
 but it is the first day of the season and the scales 
 have been left at home. I go over all these pools 
 again with the same fly, but nothing moves. 
 Then I try a silver-bodied fly with bright jungle 
 cock over dark turkey wings. 
 
 It is now past one o'clock, so slinging the fish by 
 head and tail with a couple of yards of thick 
 
 1 The fish weighed i8 Ibs. 
 E
 
 66 SPRING FISHING 
 
 string, I carry it down to the fishing hut to meet 
 my friend and your friend, Professor S. Though 
 a learned man, and certainly the greatest master in 
 England of his own particular subject, yet for 
 salmon fishing he has the heart of a boy. When he 
 is on a fishing holiday his keenness might be that 
 of a certain tribe of pagan gentlemen of the Tartar 
 race who in Siberia inhabit or did inhabit, until 
 the Russians massacred most of them the banks 
 of the river Amur. They are clothed in salmon 
 skins, and they live in tents made of salmon skins. 
 Of them it is said : ' The Golde have only one idea 
 in the world, and that is " salmon." They catch 
 it, they eat it, they talk of it, and they dream of it.' 
 I feel sure that on a fishing holiday S., who is 
 a fine fisher, nightly dreams of salmon. 
 
 Well, here he is, more than waist deep in the 
 stream : a strong pair of arms and shoulders 
 clothed in sand-coloured Harris tweed being so 
 close to the water that it looks as if another inch 
 deeper must float him off. He has got no spring 
 fish yet, though he has landed several kelts. 
 After lunch I begin on a lower pool and land a 
 kelt a thing that some anglers affect to despise, 
 but it is a thing that I, for one, am very glad to do 
 on the first day of the new season, when a pull of 
 any kind gives you a jump of pleasure. Next 
 comes a savage tug, and a perfect spring battle 
 begins. Straight off goes the fish, down and 
 across the broad river, whilst I hurry along the 
 bank hoping that the tackle will stand these
 
 SOMERVILLE 67 
 
 repeated mad dashes. Suddenly he swings round 
 and dashes back to my bank, the long line, as he 
 comes, cutting the water many yards behind 
 where the wave shows the travelling fish. Then 
 turning upwards he dashes past, almost under my 
 feet, and flings himself twice out of the water. 
 Reeling up as fast as possible, and backing away 
 from the water to get the line taut, I find him still 
 on, only to have the same tactics repeated again 
 and again, except that each time he keeps a little 
 deeper ; then, getting tired, he doggedly bores his 
 way right across the pool and into the shallows 
 opposite. There he splashes about with his back 
 out of the water, and, though I hold the rod butt 
 over my head in order to gain as much height as 
 possible, yet there is eighty yards of line out, and 
 at any moment he may catch it round a stone. 
 But he does not ; and, keeping below him, I 
 steadily coax him back, first into the deep water 
 and soon under my bank. After a time he is 
 almost done, and the gaff is got ready ; but the 
 whole bank at my feet is fringed with dwarf 
 willows, and I have to gaff him over these. Sud- 
 denly he turns and bolts into them. I can see his 
 tail, and it is within reach. If I try to pull him 
 back out of the willows he may foul the gut and 
 break it, so I decide to gaff him where he is. 
 Leaning over, I gaff him as far up as I can do, but 
 it is two hand-breadths only from the tail. Splash- 
 ing and struggling, he is hauled up the bank, but 
 the gut is caught on the willows, and will not pull
 
 68 SPRING FISHING 
 
 through them. I give a violent pull, intending to 
 break the gut, but, somehow or other, as the gut 
 breaks the fish comes off the gaff, falls again into 
 the willows, kicks through them, and is free. 
 
 I walk down the bank, gaff in hand, peering 
 into the water, for I know that he is sorely 
 wounded, but no sign of him do I see. Two 
 village lads who saw the fight that he made loudly 
 express their grief, but I find no words. I never 
 do when I lose a fish. As a parent I ought to be 
 ashamed to confess that at small annoyances I do, 
 sometimes, swear ; but I have not yet felt as if 
 any mere words could mitigate the loss of any 
 salmon, much less of a beautiful spring fish. At 
 any rate, one hopes that the fish may live to fight 
 such a battle again. But it is not so. Next day 
 come the two lads to say that they can see the 
 fish with a fly in its mouth lying dead in the water 
 a hundred yards lower down, and with a boat we 
 get him out and take my fly from his jaws. The 
 gaff had struck him full in the side and had not 
 torn out, but apparently had jerked out on the 
 breaking of the gut, because the point had stuck 
 in the backbone of the fish. The fish, which 
 weighed 16 Ibs., I gave to the boys who had found 
 him for me, and the fly I still have. It took two 
 more spring fish during the week. 
 
 On Easter Monday I got two fish, 6 Ibs. and 20 
 Ibs., both caught during snow showers, and both 
 on the claret. From the second fish I had an 
 exceptionally long and lively run. On Tuesday
 
 FISHING IN SNOW 69 
 
 evening S. was to go home, and we hoped for a 
 great day before he left ; but the water rose and 
 spoilt the fishing. Not even the kelts would take. 
 At five o'clock we were wet and cold and had 
 almost abandoned hope, when a fish, at the same 
 spot as my first on Saturday, pulled heavily at my 
 fly. He was carefully tried again, but without 
 result, and as a last chance in the big water S. 
 went over him with a phantom minnow. In- 
 stantly he took it, and after tugging and fighting 
 for twenty minutes in the deepest part of the 
 stream, he was gaffed out, a hard, glittering cock 
 fish of 1 8 Ibs. ; and he went South that evening 
 with his captor. 
 
 On Wednesday, fishing alone, I got two fish of 
 14^ and 23 Ibs., both caught in showers of snow. 
 On Thursday, in miserable weather, I had a total 
 blank, losing two flies in fish and landing only a 
 couple of kelts. The next day furnished such a 
 ' fishing yarn ' that perhaps I had better copy out 
 for you the letter I wrote to S. to give him an 
 account of it. 
 
 26/4/1908. 
 
 MY DEAR S., On Friday morning the snow lay 
 thick on the ground and a bitter N.E. gale was 
 blowing. I went rather late to the river, and 
 tried chiefly for three fish that I had moved the 
 day before. About 3.30 one of them threw 
 himself out of the water opposite the clump of 
 willows in the Boat pool, and I saw that he was a 
 good spring fish. I had already fished over him 
 
 E 2
 
 7 o SPRING FISHING 
 
 once, but a blinding snow shower came on and I 
 tried him again there and then. He rose at once, 
 but after five or six plunges, when I thought him 
 pretty safe, the hook came away. I fished on 
 with very small hope until five o'clock, and then 
 got warm by driving in the posts, with an iron 
 maul, for the new railing at the fishing hut. 
 Before going home I tried a fish lying in the tail 
 of the heavy stream below the hut. He had 
 already taken the claret fly the day before, and he 
 took it again hard but the hook came away. 
 He could not be induced to look at the fly any 
 more, so I put up a spinning rod and tried him 
 with a small minnow, just as a snow shower was 
 passing off. He took the minnow after two or 
 three offers and played strongly for five minutes, 
 when he contrived to get the line round the end of 
 a long, thin larch pole that lay under the bank 
 deep in the water. No poking of the top of the rod 
 down to the pole would get the line off, although 
 it ran quite freely under the pole to the fish, so I 
 let out a lot of slack line and then jumped in and 
 gaffed up the pole, getting wet pretty nearly up 
 to the neck. Tom Falshaw stood on the bank 
 below me, and on raising the pole I swung it round 
 to him and he released the line, which had lodged 
 behind a small branch near the end of it. Luckily 
 the line had continued to run freely and the fish 
 was still on. For another five or six minutes he 
 kept playing in the heavy water, but then he came 
 to the surface a few yards above me and rolled
 
 A LUCKY FLUKE 71 
 
 over on his side, and the minnow instantly flew up 
 into the air. At first the fish did not seem to 
 realise that he was free. Whilst you might count 
 five or six he floated down on his side in the centre 
 of the current, but when just opposite to us he 
 righted himself and slowly dived into the stream. 
 There was little more than a rod's length of line 
 out, and I had been preparing to drop the minnow 
 over him, as he floated by, and then to try to strike 
 it into him. But seeing him dive and disappear 
 I thought all hope was gone. Still, I judged that 
 he would allow himself to go down with the 
 current, so I swung the minnow over and dropped 
 it in well beyond and below him, and after count- 
 ing five, to allow time for it to sink, I struck hard 
 up-stream, but with only the very faintest hope of 
 any result. I could hardly believe my senses 
 when I felt that it had struck him deep in the 
 water, so that not even any of the six-foot long 
 spinning trace was visible. However, he left no 
 doubt about it, for he promptly bolted down the 
 heavy stream and bored away across the river until 
 he got into two feet of water. There he kept 
 splashing about, always pulling straight away from 
 me and going down-stream, so that, knowing him 
 to be hooked foul, I guessed that he must be 
 hooked in the tail. After a time he came slowly 
 walloping to the surface and continued to roll 
 about on the top whilst I towed him tail first and 
 very slowly for I was uncommonly fearful and 
 gentle with him across to my side, where I gaffed
 
 72 SPRING FISHING 
 
 him. He was a beautiful, clean-run fish of 
 15 Ibs., and the minnow was holding by one 
 triangle at the base of the upper ray of his 
 tail, and it fell out as I carried him up the 
 bank. 
 
 It really is such a preposterous fluke that I can 
 hardly ask to be believed in telling it. However, 
 I had two ' lawful men of the vicinage ' as wit- 
 nesses, Tom Falshaw, and Alick, too, who had 
 arrived just as the fish was released from the 
 snag on which he had hung up the line. 
 
 After such miracle-working as this, yesterday 
 which was my last day was tame enough, 
 though it was an almost exact repetition of your 
 day on Tuesday. There were at least two inches 
 of fresh snow, and Dorothy and I spent the 
 morning in building a huge kneeling snow man 
 for the two boys, with lumps of coal for eyes, and 
 adorned like a scarecrow with pipe, stick, and an 
 old fishing hat. I went up to fish at 12.30, and 
 at one o'clock landed a big kelt from the far side 
 of the Stakes. A bitter, black east wind came on, 
 and about five I went up to try the more sheltered 
 water of No. 4 pool. There, exactly as you had 
 done on Tuesday, but about a long cast lower down 
 the pool, I got a very strong cock fish of 20 Ibs. 
 a very wild, jumping fighter, and the best for shape 
 and colour that I have got this spring. I do not 
 think that I ever had a better, or at any rate a 
 much better, fish. 
 
 This ended the stormiest and coldest fishing,
 
 ANOTHER SPRING DAY 73 
 
 but the best for steady sport, that I ever remember 
 at Easter. Yours, A. C. 
 
 And, my boys, I believe that that letter, which 
 I wrote in the train to S., by no means exaggerates 
 the extraordinary fluke that had occurred. 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, I will begin with another 
 letter to S. 
 
 Train going South, 
 Monday Evening, tfh May 1908. 
 
 MY DEAR S., I had to go North for a good 
 sportsman's burying to-day my cousin Bill. 
 On Friday evening I found myself free, so after 
 wiring to know what the river was doing, I started 
 off by the night train to get one day at the salmon. 
 
 On Saturday morning I found the river still in 
 flood and very high a foot above the rails, 1 but 
 reported to be clearing and falling quickly. 
 There was a wretched, foggy east wind, but on a 
 one-day fishing, if only the water will let me fish, 
 
 1 shall never waste time in grumbling at the 
 weather. 
 
 In the fourth pool I got a good yellow trout of 
 
 2 Ibs. I saw a fresh fish in the level dub of the 
 A. pool opposite the stone jetty, and in the evening 
 saw a second lying above him by the fence. 
 Twenty yards above the railings in the Thorns 
 stream there was another fish splashing every now 
 
 1 These 'rails' were the mark of very high fishing water on that 
 river.
 
 74 SPRING FISHING 
 
 and then in the heavy stream, but none of them 
 would take a fly, or even a minnow, though I pegged 
 away at them until about four o'clock. Then I 
 went to the hut and fished down. The stream 
 below that was far too heavy to fish, but when I 
 got to the pool below the Stakes it grew suddenly 
 dark. About five o'clock a gentle, misty rain 
 began, and just below the neck of the stream, to 
 my surprise for the Devil's Water coming in just 
 above was still in muddy flood a good fish took 
 on the edge of the stream and almost under my 
 bank. First he rushed me about and then I 
 hustled him about, but took the very greatest 
 care in doing so, as I felt sure that it was my only 
 chance of the day, and I was anxious to get him 
 thoroughly ' done ' before bringing him up to that 
 ugly, bushy bank, in the high water that was 
 running. Even when he got tired he kept out of 
 reach for some time, but at last he swirled round 
 just above me and began boring under some 
 willows. He was swimming almost straight down- 
 wards in deep water with his head out of sight, 
 but against the roots of the willows, and his tail 
 slowly waving in the dark red water about six 
 inches below the surface. I reached over the 
 willows below him and, to lessen the great risk of 
 gaffing the line, I gaffed him in the ' tummy,' 
 near the tail greatly fearing another bungle such 
 as that by which I lost a fish in the same place 
 when we were last fishing together. This time all 
 went well, and he proved to be a clinking good fish,
 
 THE ONLY RISE 75 
 
 a perfect little pig in shape, and he weighed 
 18 Ibs. 
 
 I fished that pool over again and then hurried 
 off to give a last trial to my friends of the morning, 
 but though the water was clearing and looked 
 quite good enough for them, yet my eighteen- 
 pounder remained the only taker of the day. 
 Yours, A. C. 
 
 That, my dear boys, is spring fishing all over. 
 Pool after pool, looking perfect, and certain, as 
 you feel, to hold fish, you fish over without a sign. 
 Your high hopes are growing faint or have gone 
 altogether, when, often at the most unlikely 
 place, jump in your arm goes an electric thrill, 
 and the one rise of the day has come and the fish 
 is gone : or else, hardly knowing how it has 
 happened, your nerves are found watching, and 
 the half-raised rod is twitching and quivering 
 with the line tight upon a plunging, splashing, 
 rolling salmon, beginning a battle of anxious, 
 growing hope, ending with a noble, glittering prize. 
 
 As far as catching fish goes, you may now go 
 home. Unless your lines are, indeed, cast in 
 pleasant places you have had your only fish of the 
 day, and you will catch no more. The memories 
 of many days of spring fishing tell us so, and in our 
 hearts we know it as we admire this shapely, 
 shining fish. But, go home ! do you say ? 
 Hang it, man, the day is only just begun. Go 
 home ! Don't you know that every cast that I
 
 76 SPRING FISHING 
 
 make after this I shall feel certain that I am 
 going to take another fish. I shall be fishing 
 better than I have ever fished to-day. I 've got 
 one ; nothing can make it a blank day now, and, 
 with a little luck, I shall certainly get another. 
 
 Well, this is called patience by those who don't 
 know. But it is nothing at all like patience. It 
 is hope, undying, unquenchable, the heart and 
 soul of salmon fishing. 
 
 To A SALMON RIVER IN SPRING 
 
 Springing in the moorlands 
 In a thousand rills, 
 Each a tiny torrent 
 That the rain-storm fills, 
 Now a mighty river 
 Pouring from the hills. 
 
 Brown rushing river 
 Swirling round our knees, 
 Running here so broadly 
 Through the lowland leas, 
 But hiding lusty salmon 
 Fresh from wintry seas ! 
 
 Yield up these monarchs of thy peat-stained streams ! 
 Show us each fastness where a salmon gleams ! 
 Make us the dreamers of thy fairest dreams !
 
 IX 
 
 A WEEK-END IN OCTOBER 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, This is Monday evening, and as 
 I rush back to London in the fastest train that 
 runs from Scotland, I am passing the time by 
 writing an account for you of the last three days' 
 fishing. 
 
 I travelled North last Thursday night and had 
 a very early breakfast on Friday. Then I rushed 
 off to the river and was ready to make my first 
 cast at five minutes to nine. 
 
 Just look at the day ! It is dull and foggy, and 
 the wind is from the east. The water is fairly 
 clear, but is still very high and is stained with 
 peat, for it was news of a sudden flood just before 
 the season closed that had brought me up. 
 
 What fly shall we begin with ? I think I shall 
 start in that long, rough stream, and shall begin 
 with the very biggest fly that I have, this great 
 clumsy Jock Scott, a full two and a half inches 
 long. Very often in a big black water the fish 
 have taken such a fly when they would not look 
 at anything smaller, however bright it might be. 
 
 With the river as high as this we will skip the 
 first forty yards, the swiftest and roughest of the 
 water, for it is only where the stream begins to 
 
 77
 
 78 A WEEK-END IN OCTOBER 
 
 spread out and to run less turbulently that we shall 
 take a fish to-day. So the first cast is made 
 abreast of a broken fence that stands amongst 
 the bushes on the opposite bank. For one, two, 
 five, ten, fifteen minutes, nothing happens, though 
 every sense is on the alert as the fly comes round 
 in the very best water that we ever fish. Can the 
 fish be going to sulk on the first fly day after an 
 October flood ? 
 
 It almost seems so. A fresh cast is made almost 
 square across the water, and the line at once begins 
 to ' belly ' in the rushing current. ' Phist ' goes 
 the slacking line, up goes the rod, and almost before 
 I know what has happened or how it happened, 
 the line is tightened hard and the thudding, heavy 
 plunges of a good fish come plain and unmistak- 
 able. In a moment he breaks the surface and 
 then, whilst one may count ten, he thrashes about 
 to get rid of this terrifying restraint. Lash lash 
 lash lash ; then a second of quiet and again the 
 thrashing begins. There is no mistaking a good 
 fish when he does this, however little you may be 
 able to see of him. Presently he settles down 
 and begins trying short dashes about the pool, 
 then a resolute boring up to the head of the stream 
 and a sudden dash down again. Then the end 
 begins ; he comes out into the quieter water and 
 presently his sullen plunges begin to break the 
 surface of the water again, and in a few minutes 
 more he rolls over on his side and is brought out 
 with a long gaff. Well, he is a clinker ; a short,
 
 LOSING FISH 79 
 
 thick, and hard, though reddish, cock fish of four- 
 and-twenty pounds. 
 
 I start the pool again. This time only a few 
 casts down it the line suddenly tightens and three 
 or four heavy kicks tell of a good fish. But he is 
 gone ; and he refuses, of course, to come again. 
 Another ten minutes and just off the end of the 
 fence, where the first fish took, a thumping rise is 
 followed by the slow, heavy thrashing of another 
 big fish. Five seconds, ten seconds pass a long 
 time they seem and one is just feeling sure that 
 the fish is well hooked when up flies the top of the 
 quivering rod and the long line hangs loose. He 
 must have broken me. With a sickening feeling 
 of disappointment I pull in the line. No ! the 
 fly is there. The point of the hook is not blunted, 
 and the hook itself is firm and rigid and is not 
 ' sprung/ It must have got only a slight hold, or 
 else I think that its point must have been resting 
 against a bone. But they are getting off the hook 
 in a most unaccountable way. Perhaps this hook 
 is too big ; at any rate the point is sharp and the 
 fish are coming to this fly, so we will try it again in 
 the deepest water. Presently a gallant fish comes, 
 and he makes such a wild, dashing, tearing fight 
 that, failing to break the gut, he is soon ' dead 
 beat/ turns on his back, and is taken out within 
 five minutes of his hooking, a short, bright fish of 
 17 Ibs. 
 
 Gemini ! what a day ! It is only just past ten 
 o'clock and we have taken two good fish and lost
 
 8o A WEEK-END IN OCTOBER 
 
 two more, both of which, with ordinary luck, 
 should have been landed. But the next hour and 
 a half brings no more rises though we fish the 
 entire pool again with the big Jock Scott, then 
 with a big claret and mallard, and finally go over 
 the best of it with a smaller Jock Scott. 
 
 Then we go to the slower stream above, a deep, 
 still pool ending with a big, strong-running dub, 
 which itself ends in a glassy suck past big stones 
 to the rapids. It is fished from a broad gravel 
 bed, making very easy wading. As the rod is 
 being lifted to recover the line after the very 
 first cast, a fish follows the fly and snatches it. 
 It is not a big fish, and in this open water it 
 gets little mercy, and a very lively five minutes 
 sees it also on the gravel bank a hen fish of 
 13 Ibs. 
 
 For the rest of that long pool, a good hour of 
 most careful fishing, not one fish moved. But 
 at the very end a fish showed himself. He was 
 above me, just breaking the surface at the far 
 side of the glassy run, and lying so far over that the 
 fly had not covered him, so I worked myself back 
 a few yards and let out line cast by cast until he 
 saw the fly and took it. A jolly, stout-hearted 
 fish he proved to be, and after thrashing about 
 until he got right into the rapids, he came steadily 
 up-stream and explored his own pool in every 
 direction, grubbed amongst the rocks under the 
 opposite bank, and sailed round and round the 
 great boulder in the stream. Then he turned
 
 TWO FISH 81 
 
 again for the rapids and splashed and raced down 
 them into the pool below. There the game ended 
 in favour of the rod, and he was duly weighed out 
 at 22 Ibs. 
 
 It was now one o'clock, so I sent Tom off to 
 the fishing hut to boil the kettle whilst I went 
 down the rough stream once more with a large 
 white and silver fly. This time I began a little 
 higher up, and when I had come just opposite the 
 fence as the fly which fell in the slack water 
 was being towed by the current into the rush, there 
 was a splashing rise like that of a great trout. 
 A big belly of line tore out of the stream as the rod 
 was raised, and a few yards higher up a red cock 
 fish flung himself out with the line trailing behind 
 him. His way of fighting was most unusual. It 
 was to make long, dogged runs down and across 
 the stream. Then under the other bank he would 
 begin jig-jig-jiggering, and keep this up until I 
 had got him near my bank again, when he would 
 once more dash off for the other side and repeat the 
 same performance. He had contrived to get the 
 gut caught round the bony cartilage at the corner 
 of his mouth on the farther side from me, and 
 possibly that may have been the reason why he 
 preferred to make all his runs down-stream. 
 However, all things come to an end, and he soon 
 ended on the bank 144 Ibs. 
 
 It was now half-past one, but before going down 
 to luncheon I finished out the pool and hooked and 
 lost a very heavy fish. How big he was I cannot 
 
 F
 
 82 A WEEK-END IN OCTOBER 
 
 say, for though he kept splashing on the surface 
 of the water he never showed himself clear of it, 
 and he was only on for a few minutes. Certainly 
 he was not less than 20 Ibs. my hopes put him at 
 not less than five-and-twenty. 
 
 And so to lunch. Past two o'clock and I had 
 got five fish and lost three. I found your ' Uncle ' 
 Clervaux, who had only begun to fish at twelve 
 o'clock, with a white and silver fly that I had made 
 for him ten days before, had got three good fish, 
 14^, 14^, and 12 Ibs. The day was getting darker 
 and more foggy, and when we went on again the 
 fish were much more shy. At the tail of my first 
 stream I hooked, and after a few minutes lost, a 
 heavy fish, and also had another rise and held for 
 a few splashes a little fish of 6 or 7 Ibs. From then 
 until dusk not a fish would look at the fly, but then 
 in a swift, smooth run a nice fish boiled up and 
 just touched the fly. At the next cast he again 
 came up and followed the fly across the pool, but 
 after that he would not move, although I tried 
 him with several flies. As a last resort as darkness 
 set in he was tried and killed on a small phantom 
 minnow. He weighed n Ibs. So ended my day. 
 Six fish, 24, 17, 13, 22, 14^, and n Ibs., and five 
 fish lost. Uncle Clervaux got one more fish, a 
 fine hen fish of 25 Ibs. 
 
 On Saturday we began early. S. arrived by a 
 train early enough to permit of breakfast at 7.15, 
 and by eight o'clock we were off to the river. A 
 gusty wind, strong and bitterly cold, blew up-
 
 A WOUNDED FISH 83 
 
 stream and made fishing very hard work indeed. 
 I went to the water that I had fished on Friday. 
 In the dub, at 9.15, a fish swirled up just after the 
 fly had fallen on the water, but he missed it. At 
 the next cast he followed the fly for six or seven 
 yards, and at the third cast he did the same, but 
 this time he ended by taking it with a rush and a 
 fine swirl. Then he bolted down through the 
 rapids into the next pool, where in due time he 
 was landed, a cock fish of 19 Ibs. This fish had 
 received at some time what must have been a most 
 terrible wound. The vent and a large part of the 
 left side above it for a distance of five or six inches 
 had been torn or bitten out. The wound in the 
 side had healed perfectly, though still showing a 
 great hollow, but the vent was altogether gone, and 
 in its place, though rather to one side, was a great 
 round hole into which one could have thrust 
 a half-crown piece. 
 
 I then fished the lower pool with a white and 
 silver fly. In the heaviest water a big fish took 
 the fly with a glorious snatch. He seemed to be 
 firmly hooked, and he gave a great run for ten 
 minutes, but then I lost him by a piece of gross 
 carelessness by shifting the rod to my right hand 
 and with it holding rod and line together just as 
 the fish made a dash down-stream, splashing along 
 the surface and tearing out the hold. 
 
 Immediately after losing this fish I got a 
 vicious pull from another, and a few minutes later 
 a third fish came twice to the fly, but was not
 
 84 A WEEK-END IN OCTOBER 
 
 hooked. From that time, about ten o'clock, until 
 four, though I slaved hard and fished the very 
 best I knew, I got no rise at all. 
 
 At four o'clock a good fish followed the fly twice, 
 but would not touch it, and shortly afterwards, fish- 
 ing above our boat-house, a big fish lying in very 
 quiet water snatched the fly, and throwing himself 
 over and over, broke the gut. I suppose it had been 
 weakened by casting in the rough wind, but still 
 a break like that is entirely the fault of the fisher. 
 It is inexcusable not to test the gut often, and 
 more frequently than ever should one try it on a 
 windy day, when one ought to know that gut runs 
 great risk of becoming weakened. S., I was told, 
 had got four good fish, and my bag looked very 
 poor beside his. But luck came, as it does so 
 often, with the dusk. The sun had come out and 
 had shone brightly during the afternoon, and just 
 as it was setting I saw a heavy fish rising near the 
 point of a jetty. The place is a favourite and most 
 deadly cast if the fly is allowed to hang beside the 
 current ; and I fished it most carefully now with 
 a small Jock Scott. No sooner had I finished it 
 than the same fish began to rise again and again. 
 So I put on a large white and silver fly l and began 
 the pool anew. As the fly covered him he rose 
 with a quick flicker of the tail that made me feel 
 sure that he had taken it. He had not, but at the 
 
 1 This fly, called a ' white and silver,' has a perfectly plain body of 
 oval silver, a rather long white hackle, and wings of dark turkey, with 
 a large jungle-cock's feather over each wing. No tail, tag, butt, head, 
 or any other adornment.
 
 THE WHITE AND SILVER FLY 85 
 
 next cast he made no mistake and took the fly 
 hard, under water. 
 
 At first he kept deep in the water, but as soon as 
 he got thoroughly frightened he bolted down the 
 stream for twenty or thirty yards and then flung 
 himself clear out of the water, falling in with a 
 mighty splash and then tearing off down-stream 
 again. Up to that moment I had no idea that he 
 was more than a decent twenty-pounder, but my 
 heart jumped as I realised that he must be at 
 least 30 Ibs., and that we were to fight it out in 
 growing darkness on the worst piece of bank and 
 in the most risky piece of water on the river, the 
 whole bank being lined with snags and sunken logs, 
 and one fine snag lying right in midstream about 
 ten yards below him. 
 
 There is not much to be said about the next 
 twenty minutes, but a great deal was done in it, 
 and there was much water splashed about and 
 much running up and down of banks and struggling 
 and tumbling through willows and bushes on my 
 part, but it all ended right, in a fine cock fish of 
 33 Ibs., though a very red one, with the most 
 enormous ' gib ' that I have ever seen. As I lifted 
 him up the bank the fly fell out of his mouth, and 
 we found that at some time during the fight he 
 had snapped the hook off behind the barb. It 
 was a bit of luck to land him, and all the more 
 welcome because this was the heaviest fish that 
 I had ever landed on the fly. The fly itself I 
 shall keep in my museum box of treasures. 
 
 F2
 
 86 A WEEK-END IN OCTOBER 
 
 To-day, Monday, was my last day. I had to 
 leave the water by two o'clock absolutely the 
 last moment if I would catch this train that I am 
 now in. We began to fish at a quarter-past nine. 
 The day was wretched, with constant showers and 
 a cold north-east wind, and by eleven o'clock I had 
 had three feeble rises and had got no fish, so I put 
 up a spinning rod and at the first cast took a sea- 
 trout of 3 Ibs. A few minutes later I got a salmon 
 of 19 Ibs., and shortly afterwards lost a big fish on 
 the minnow. The fish contrived to get the line 
 foul on a rock and tore itself away, taking with it 
 both of the triangles from my minnow. Then I 
 took to the fly again, a small port-wine coloured 
 fly, and landed a beautiful bright cock fish of 
 17 Ibs. an exceptionally good fish for so late in 
 the year. Then I moved to an upper pool and 
 had another pull, and presently amongst the 
 boulders at the far side of the pool a fish boiled 
 up at the fly, and after a little coaxing came again 
 and was hooked and landed a female fish, short 
 and thick, of 16 or 17 Ibs. However, as October 
 was nearly out and female fish are poor to eat, but 
 precious for spawning, she was gently unhooked 
 and slipped in again, though looking rather sorry 
 for herself. By this time it is nearly two o'clock, 
 and I go up and have five minutes' fishing at the 
 place where I took the thirty-three pounder last 
 Saturday. Then I try a few last casts with the 
 minnow rod before taking it down, and in making 
 my very longest throw for the very last cast of the
 
 THE LAST CAST OF THE SEASON 87 
 
 season the minnow sticks fast on the gravelly 
 shallows opposite. I take hold of the line, point 
 the rod at the water and pull heavily, meaning 
 to break the line ; but the strain drags away the 
 minnow, no doubt turning over the stone on which 
 it had caught. The minnow swings into the heavy 
 water, and as I reel up some fish snatches it and 
 begins to splash in all directions. Just after 
 two o'clock he is landed, a sea- trout of 5 Ibs., 
 and in ten minutes more I am in the dogcart with 
 two out of three salmon and two sea-trout, and 
 my week-end and my season are both over. 
 
 Not a bad week-end either eleven salmon, 
 weighing 205 Ibs., an average of over i8J Ibs. 
 apiece, besides two sea-trout. Nor a bad season 
 either that is ended by this week-end. Seventy- 
 three salmon it has found for me in one place or 
 another, including my heaviest fish 40^ Ibs.
 
 X 
 
 MINNOW FISHING 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, Avoid minnow fishing for salmon 
 as a canker that will eat into some of the very best 
 days of your fly fishing. 
 
 Before the introduction of the ' Silex ' casting 
 reel, minnow fishing was a tedious and clumsy 
 process, and there was little to tempt any good 
 fly fisher to use a minnow beyond the period for 
 which alone, as I think, it is fitted or is really 
 justifiable. That is during the rise or fall of a 
 flood when the water is more or less muddy and 
 inky black, and the fly is useless or very nearly 
 useless. Then, without doubt, the artificial 
 minnow can kill fish well, and as the water clears 
 can do great execution amongst the very largest 
 fish. 
 
 But it is a dangerous thing for you to begin its 
 use. As soon as one has mastered the knack of 
 casting from the reel, one can fish a minnow 
 tolerably, and can drag out in the most summary 
 way three or four large fish on a day when one's 
 fly fishing is quite fruitless. The next day the 
 river has cleared and has become perfect for the 
 fly. It ought to be a tip-top day. But you are 
 tempted of the devil to try just for an hour the
 
 FISH FLY IF POSSIBLE 89 
 
 phantom minnow that you know proved so deadly 
 the day before. You take a fish or two and then 
 you go on with the minnow all day long, making a 
 big bag perhaps, but dragging out the fish with a 
 trace made of steel wire, and armed with two or 
 three triangle hooks, and at the end of the day 
 feeling that you have been rather a butcher than 
 a fisherman, and that you might almost as well 
 have used a net ; and conscious also that your 
 comrade, who has kept on with the fly and has had 
 but a couple of good fish, is a better sportsman 
 than you have been, and has had a far more enjoy- 
 able day. 
 
 Still more fatally tempting is the relapse to 
 minnow when, after a good day minnowing, you 
 find next morning that the water is right for the 
 fly, and you resolve to make it a day of fly only. 
 You put on your best fly and you begin full of 
 hope. For an hour or two you cover much water 
 without a single rise, and you begin to doubt 
 whether the fish mean to take at all to-day. 
 Soon, just to see whether they will move at all, 
 you put up the spinning rod, resolved merely to 
 have one try down the pool. A fish takes the 
 accursed thing, and you are lost. Abandoning 
 all sense of decency, you pursue the horrible craft, 
 and at dusk you stagger back to the fishing hut 
 with half a dozen great fish upon your back and 
 with your conscience hanging about the neck of 
 your heart, which keeps on protesting in vain that 
 this was really no day for the fly.
 
 90 MINNOW FISHING 
 
 Fortunately, when the water really clears, you 
 must throw aside your wretched spinning tackle, 
 for except, perhaps, in the early spring it then 
 becomes almost useless, and the fly is greatly 
 superior to it. 
 
 However, in a cold, wet season, when the river 
 is in flood for weeks together, with only odd days 
 when fishing is possible, the minnow can be really 
 and legitimately useful. Then in big, dark 
 waters, stained or muddy from the floods, you 
 should cast well across the stream and let your 
 minnow swing as deep in the water as possible, 
 winding in the line very slowly, just fast enough 
 to enable you to keep touch with your bait, in 
 order to keep it off the bottom and to feel the least 
 sign of any attack upon it. 
 
 A fish often takes the minnow with a savage 
 grab, but sometimes he takes it so quietly that 
 you may think it was merely some floating leaf 
 that has touched your line. Only when you 
 make a second cast and at the same spot take a 
 salmon do you know what caused this tiny check 
 to the minnow. 
 
 One spring morning only a few seasons ago, 
 some idlers were hanging over the parapet of 
 the bridge that you know very well over our 
 lowest pool, and were watching an angler spinning 
 a big phantom minnow in the pool below their feet. 
 Suddenly a big fish of four- or five-and-twenty 
 pounds appeared out of the black depths, followed 
 the minnow out of the strong current, then seized
 
 SALMON TAKING GENTLY 91 
 
 it and slowly began to sink, plainly holding the 
 minnow in his jaws. To their amazement the 
 fisher gave no sign of having perceived anything, 
 although they knew that he was fishing for that 
 very fish. They shouted to him, ' You Ve got 
 him ! ' and he struck violently, but too late. 
 The fish had discovered the fraud and had already 
 let go the minnow. 
 
 That incident was only an extreme case, luckily 
 not unseen, of an attack by a salmon upon a 
 phantom minnow which conveyed but the faintest 
 impression, if any, to the angler. I am convinced 
 that in every kind of fishing, whether with fly or 
 bait, such things are much commoner than most 
 fishers suppose. A quick eye will, especially in 
 windy weather, often see the flash of a turning 
 salmon which has followed the minnow into 
 shallow water and has not seized it in time. A 
 second cast brought round more slowly will often 
 result in a savage grab just before the minnow 
 reaches the same place, or just before it is to be 
 lifted out of the water. 
 
 In spring, especially on sunny and frosty 
 mornings, a small and fast-spinning minnow 
 fished through the most rapid streams will fre- 
 quently kill fish in the very lowest and clearest 
 water. But when fishing in clear water the 
 minnow, if you are to do well, must spin fast, and 
 if the water is not only clear but low, the faster 
 the minnow moves through the pool the better is 
 your chance of taking fish. And even in low
 
 92 MINNOW FISHING 
 
 dead low waters a minnow, as darkness sets in, 
 may take the shyest and the wariest salmon. 
 
 TACKLE FOR SPINNING 
 
 For spinning the artificial minnow or for fishing 
 with prawn or any other bait, the best rod that I 
 know is an eleven-foot six-inch spinning rod. If 
 made of cane it will be unbreakable, and will also 
 be lighter and easier to fish with, holding it, as you 
 have to do, in one hand, whilst the other hand is 
 busy with the reel. A split cane rod, built especi- 
 ally for spinning, is, of course, the best, but a cheap 
 sixteen-foot fly rod of whole cane, costing about 
 twenty or twenty-five shillings, does very well 
 indeed as a bait casting or spinning rod if it is cut 
 down to a length of about fourteen feet to fourteen 
 feet six inches, and it is a job that any one can 
 do for (himself. One has only to cut off about 
 eighteen or twenty inches from the top, and tie 
 on the top ring again. 
 
 Then for the reel, a ' Silex ' reel (which is really 
 only the old Nottingham reel, but made of metal 
 instead of wood, and fitted with an ingenious brake 
 and check) is better than anything else that I 
 know. A newer reel of the same type is being sold 
 now, but I have never used it. As soon as you 
 learn the gentle upward swish that is required 
 in fishing with such a reel, you can cast a great 
 distance with much ease and great accuracy. 
 
 At first you will be much bothered by the awful 
 tangles caused by the reel overrunning. Gener-
 
 TANGLES 93 
 
 ally this has been caused by your using too much 
 force in the throw, but a sudden and jerky start 
 is very apt to produce overrunning. The cast 
 should be more a sweep than a jerk, and the less 
 you attempt to guide the line on to the drum of 
 the reel the better. But if, as you wind it in, you 
 find the line piling up on one side of the drum, that 
 is due unless you are allowing something to 
 touch the line to the reel not being set on 
 perfectly straight, and a reel set even slightly 
 crooked will give immense trouble, and the real 
 cause is very often not noticed. 
 
 There is one tip with a badly overrun line. If 
 you try to pull off the line you generally end in 
 making things worse. Take the drum bodily out 
 of the reel with the tangle untouched, and you can 
 then very quickly throw off the whole of the 
 tangled line and wind it again on the drum. And 
 if you don't know it already it is worth remember- 
 ing that if you hold the line, first with one hand 
 and then with the other winding on, say, twenty 
 or thirty turns with the right hand, then keeping 
 the drum in the same position and winding on 
 about the same number of turns with the left, and 
 so on you will counteract the twist that is given 
 with each turn if you wind on a string or line over 
 the end of a reel (or of anything else) that is not 
 revolving. Never pull a tangle. 
 
 As a spinning line, forty yards of ordinary dressed 
 silk trout line, costing a penny a yard or less, is 
 far better and cheaper than the thick and costly
 
 94 MINNOW FISHING 
 
 lines in sixty or eighty yard lengths sold by the 
 fishing- tackle shops as spinning lines for salmon. 
 The trout line has ample strength. With it you 
 may, when using a steel wire trace, smash your 
 hooks in order to free the minnow when hung up 
 on a rock or a stake ; and the thinness of the line 
 is a great advantage both for ease in casting a light 
 bait and as being less visible to the fish. 
 
 One thing is vital, with every spinning line. 
 Every few hours, unless your line is quite new, you 
 must test, by a fair pull between your hands, the 
 last ten feet or so of the line next the trace, in 
 order to see if it has yet become dangerously worn 
 by the friction upon the rings of the rod. If the 
 line breaks on a fair pull between the hands, you 
 must ruthlessly continue to break pieces off until 
 you have got rid of the whole of the weakened part. 
 Any shirking or neglect in this respect may cost you 
 dear, for you will probably lose, not merely the 
 trace and minnow, but a good fish as well. Yet 
 I will make bold to prophesy that you will neglect 
 to test it, and will more than once pay the penalty 
 and then realise full well why you have done so. 
 
 In this matter the strong, thick spinning line is 
 even more dangerous than the thin trout line. 
 The latter looks thin and fragile and invites con- 
 stant testing. The former takes a longer time to 
 wear, in the first instance, but when badly worn, 
 still looks thick and strong, and that causes you to 
 forget the need of frequent tests. 
 
 Behind the spinning line you want some backing
 
 TROUT LINES FOR SPINNING 95 
 
 forty to eighty yards, according to the nature of 
 the rivers you are likely to fish of thin, strong silk 
 or hemp. Undressed silk plait is by far the 
 strongest and the best for backing, if you wish to 
 have a very long line upon your spinning reel, but 
 a hundred yards of immensely strong, thin plaited 
 hemp line can be bought for ninepence or a shilling. 
 As to minnows : I always use a phantom or else 
 a Devon minnow. Natural bait of any kind, if 
 kept alive, is messy and a nuisance, and if kept 
 dead it soon becomes a stinking abomination. 
 The best phantom for dark water, so far as my 
 experience goes, is Brown's silk phantom, painted 
 with a blue back and an ivory belly, but either 
 silver or gold colour does well enough in place of 
 the ivory, although neither is so conspicuous in a 
 dark water as the ivory colour appears to be. 
 For big waters I use a three and a half inch 
 minnow (that is, three and a half inches from the 
 snout to the tip of the tail), and for lower waters 
 a minnow of three inches, two and three-quarter 
 inches, or even less. The minnow should be leaded 
 up to the total weight of half an ounce or there- 
 abouts, but the smallest sizes cannot very well be 
 brought up to this weight, and the largest sizes 
 may well be a trifle heavier. But a weight of 
 half an ounce is heavy enough to enable one to 
 throw the minnow easily, and it also is enough to 
 ensure its sinking pretty deeply in the water. 
 Do not buy your phantoms leaded, but buy a 
 pound of lead wire ; and buy it at an ironmonger's
 
 96 MINNOW FISHING 
 
 shop and not from a fishing-tackle maker, who will 
 charge you many times the price for it. Then cut 
 the lead wire into lengths and insert them into 
 your phantom either through the mouth, beside 
 the swivel, or else through a small hole cut with a 
 knife point in the back near the metal head. 
 You must cut your hole in the back of the phantom 
 rather to one side of the centre line, or you will 
 cut the stitches which sew up the silken body, and 
 will spoil your minnow. The most useful size of 
 lead wire is about No. 17 British wire gauge, but if 
 your wire is too thick it can very easily be made 
 thinner by taking a steady pull on the length 
 which you are going to cut up, when the ductile 
 metal will stretch and reduce its thickness to any 
 degree that you may desire. 
 
 In order to keep the loose leads from wearing 
 or breaking through the silken body of your 
 phantom in which the lead is contained, it is a 
 good thing to tie round the body, after the lead is 
 put into it, a few turns of stout thread or thin 
 twine at a point about half an inch above the neck 
 of the tail. The tail itself I always cut off. 
 Neither the tail nor the fins of a swimming fish 
 are visible, and the phantom seems to last longer 
 without its imitation tail, which gets much knocked 
 about by the violent splash with which the heav}' 
 leaded minnow falls into the water at each cast. 
 The metal fins also are a weak point in the design of 
 the minnow as you buy it* One side of them is 
 dark, and that is right enough, but the lower side is
 
 PHANTOMS 97 
 
 always painted a brilliant silver or ivory colour to 
 match the belly. This does well enough in black 
 or thick waters, but in moderate waters it is a 
 great mistake. The fin of the living minnow, 
 when swimming, is not visible. The fin of the 
 artificial copy is needed to make the body spin so 
 as to hide the fraud as much as possible, but the 
 fins should be made as inconspicuous as possible. 
 You will find it a great advantage to take the 
 point of your knife and scrape off all the paint or 
 silvering from the lower side of the fins so as to 
 leave them as little obtrusive in colour as may be. 
 
 Several tackle-makers have a good, small 
 phantom with an olive-coloured or dark-greenish 
 back and a yellowish or ivory belly perhaps 
 rather more like a loach than a minnow. These 
 kill well in low, clear water whenever a minnow 
 will kill at all in such water that is, chiefly in the 
 spring or at the fall of dusk. 
 
 A small minnow, mounted as usual with three 
 triangles, is much improved by removing the 
 triangle nearest to the head and slightly increasing 
 the length of the gut by which the middle triangle 
 is attached. Usually both the flying triangles are 
 tied to the same piece of twisted gut, so care must 
 be taken, when removing one triangle, to see that 
 the other is left securely knotted. 
 
 In any case the spin of the artificial minnow is 
 improved and the life of the twisted gut holding 
 the flying triangle is increased by tying a turn of 
 thin string or a few turns of stout thread tightly 
 
 G
 
 98 MINNOW FISHING 
 
 behind the metal fins to prevent the flying triangles 
 from swinging forward during the cast, and so 
 catching the trace or chafing their gut mounts 
 against the metal fins. 
 
 As a spinning trace gut is well enough for trout, 
 and it, of course, will do for salmon, but it is not 
 from any point of view to be compared with steel 
 wire as a trace for spinning for salmon. It is, as 
 I think, better not to use either twisted wire traces 
 or the blackened steel wire now usually sold in the 
 tackle shops. Plain piano wire, as sold by any 
 ironmonger who deals in piano wire, at the price of 
 about sevenpence a hank, is far the best thing that 
 can be got. Though of white, unlacquered metal, 
 yet it is so thin that in use it alarms the fish less 
 than the gut does, even in a clear water, and its 
 strength is far beyond all gut and beyond all needs. 
 Each hank contains several dozen yards, and the 
 traces are so cheap and so quickly made that one 
 need never hesitate to throw away any piece of 
 wire that, in the course of playing a fish, has 
 become, as wire sometimes does become, twisted 
 corkscrew fashion or rendered uneven and un- 
 sightly by many sharp bends. 1 
 
 For clear, low water it is worth while, I think, 
 to use as much as six to eight feet of wire as a 
 trace, but in heavy or in stained water four or five 
 feet of wire is enough. To make a trace you have 
 
 1 As a piano wire seller may not be easy to find, I will give you 
 the address of one. I have bought mine for many years as No. 3 
 music wire from Goddard of 68 Tottenham Court Road.
 
 WIRE TRACES 99 
 
 only to cut off the required length of wire and then 
 to fasten one end to a stout double swivel and the 
 other end to the swivel in the head of your phan- 
 tom. To attach the reel line to this trace you 
 pass the end of the line through the other ring of 
 the top swivel through the ring twice if the 
 swivel is big enough then knot the loose end of 
 the line once round the upper line above the swivel, 
 draw this knot tight and then pull the sort of 
 running noose thus formed firmly home upon the 
 swivel ring. This knot, well tied, will stand any 
 strain and will never slip. 
 
 To fasten the wire to the swivels one need only 
 put the wire once through the ring and then, 
 bending the end back, twist it neatly four or five 
 times round the trace and then break or cut off 
 the loose end with a pair of pliers. 
 
 This leaves a neat little loop like the bottom of 
 the figure 6, as that figure is usually written by 
 hand, and in order to prevent this loop, on 
 receiving a strong pull, running up like a slip knot 
 and jamming hard on the swivel ring, you should, 
 with your pliers, take hold of the twisted roll 
 above this loop and as close to it as possible, and 
 then with a slight turn of the pliers bend the 
 junction of the trace and loop so that the loop 
 ceases to resemble the written figure 6 and 
 becomes pear-shaped the trace representing the 
 stalk of the pear and pointing into the centre of 
 the loop, and no longer in line with one side of it. 
 Then the loop will never slip. A small pair of
 
 ioo MINNOW FISHING 
 
 cutting pliers suitable for making up and cutting 
 off this steel wire can be got for two shillings and 
 sixpence from Buck of Tottenham Court Road, 
 or of Holtzapfel, or any of the lathe tool makers ; 
 but to cut piano wire the pliers must be of the 
 very best quality. With any plain pair of small 
 pliers, costing only a few pence, the wire can be 
 broken easily and neatly by a little sharp twisting 
 to and fro. Never use rusted wire. 
 
 It is worth knowing also, as a quick and simple 
 means of cutting off from the swivels, in order to 
 throw away, a damaged trace, that without any 
 tool you can cut this thin wire by purposely 
 making a complete kink and pulling it tight. 
 Then, upon opening out the kink again, the wire 
 will break without the least effort. You would 
 think that anything that can be broken in such 
 a simple fashion must be utterly unreliable for 
 salmon fishing. I thought so too at one time, yet, 
 notwithstanding this facility of breaking, I have 
 never had and have never heard of one single break 
 in actual fishing with this wire, although I have 
 used it for years and have taken with it at the 
 very least a hundred salmon. I have tried wire, 
 too, as a trace for fly fishing, using flies with eyes 
 of metal instead of loops of gut or of fiddle-string. 
 In heavy waters, where one wants to use a very 
 big fly, the wire trace is tolerable, and I dare say 
 that if one got accustomed to it one would fish 
 with nothing else, but it seems rather to slash 
 the fly into the water, it whistles as it flies through
 
 MINNOW TACKLES 101 
 
 the air, and one misses the softness of the fall 
 given by the uncurling gut cast. So much of the 
 pleasure of a day's salmon fishing consists in the 
 clean, easy stretching of your cast upon the water, 
 consists in everything going ' sweetly/ as they say 
 of machinery that is running perfectly, that I do 
 not think that wire will, for a long time to come, 
 supersede gut for fly fishing. However, he is a 
 rash man who in these days will prophesy. 
 
 Two SIMPLE TACKLES FOR NATURAL MINNOW 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, Sometimes you may wish to 
 fish a natural bait with a fly rod. There are two 
 very good tackles for doing so. The one is merely 
 a triangle (or two triangles) whipped to a strand 
 of stout gut which has a loop made at the other 
 end. You must insert a baiting needle (an 
 ordinary thin steel crochet hook would do very 
 well, or a big darning needle with one side of the 
 eye filed out) into the natural minnow or loach 
 either at the vent, or, still better, at the back 
 opposite the vent, and you must bring the needle 
 out at the mouth or the point of the nose, drawing 
 the gut through after it until the shank of the 
 triangle is buried in the bait. You then weight 
 the bait by thrusting down its throat either a 
 few loose shot or else a lead sinker attached by a 
 loop to the cast, so as to slide down into the bait. 
 Though not necessary, it is an advantage, also, to 
 close the mouth of the bait, either with a twist of 
 fine wire put through the lips or by a stitch or two 
 
 G2
 
 102 MINNOW FISHING 
 
 with a needle and thread. The bait is then cast 
 very gently with the fly rod and allowed to sink 
 rather deep, and is then played slowly by raising 
 and lowering the rod point. 
 
 You must remember that this is not a spinning 
 bait. At the most it slowly wobbles. I have 
 never caught a salmon on natural minnow myself, 
 but I have often seen the natural minnow, mounted 
 in this way, and used by a certain old fisherman, 
 prove very killing in the lowest and clearest water 
 in spring and early summer. Except for the 
 careful and gentle casting needed, and the slowness 
 with which it is worked, the minnow is fished 
 exactly like a fly. The bait is not swung out, but 
 is cast as a fly is cast. In order to avoid injury to 
 the bait it is wise to use a very slow recovery and 
 backward cast, and to avoid any jerk when the 
 f onvard cast is made, by waiting until you can feel 
 the pull of the bait behind you before you begin 
 the forward throw. You will find this care 
 imperative if you wish to cast anything heavy, 
 whether it is a bait or an artificial minnow or any 
 other lure with a fly rod. Unless you delay making 
 the cast forward until you can feel the pull of the 
 weight upon the line behind you, a violent jerk or 
 crack will be given to the cast which no tackle will 
 stand for long. Not only will there be a violent 
 jerk, but the cast that you make will be a very 
 poor one. If you wait until this pull is felt the 
 line is then at full stretch behind you, and a fairly 
 easy forward throw makes the cast smoothly and
 
 CASTING A MINNOW 103 
 
 without a jerk, and covers a great deal more water. 
 Also when casting a minnow or any weighted bait 
 with a fly rod you should always ' shoot ' a certain 
 amount of line just before the minnow is about to 
 fall upon the water. Thus you gain a double 
 advantage. By pulling in your line before each 
 cast you shorten the line and lessen the risk of 
 cracking off your bait, and the act of shooting the 
 line in making the forward throw ensures a much 
 softer fall of your line and its burden upon the 
 water. 
 
 The other method of baiting is that used by 
 David Webster, who wrote The Angler and the 
 Loop Rod, one of the most delightful and instruc- 
 tive books ever written about fishing. His 
 minnow tackle, a very ancient one in the North 
 Country, requires no baiting needle, and is there- 
 fore much more quickly and more easily adjusted 
 to the bait. It is simply three round bend hooks 
 lashed to a strand of gut exactly like a Stewart 
 tackle, one below the other, with the middle one 
 pointing in the opposite direction to the other 
 two back to back, as it were. 
 
 You put the top hook through the head of the 
 bait, passing it through the sockets of both eyes, 
 by which means it has a firm hold even in a very- 
 delicate bait. The middle hook you pass through 
 the back fin, and the end one you pass through the 
 skin at the tail or near it. The points of the hooks 
 are all left projecting, and the minnow should then 
 be slightly weighted as described for the last
 
 104 MINNOW FISHING 
 
 tackle. The pull of the line being from one eye, 
 the bait, which should be left perfectly straight, 
 will slowly wobble over and over in a most at- 
 tractive manner, and a swivel is, of course, needed 
 upon the trace. The hooks, though they lie very 
 close to the bait, and are not easy to see, yet will 
 readily hook any fish that may attack the bait. 
 This tackle is a most excellent one for trout 
 fishing, and it has the advantage of being one that 
 any angler can make for himself who has a few 
 hooks and some waxed thread. A small sinker of 
 lead or some turns of lead wire a few feet away helps 
 to keep the bait deep in the water, but in case of 
 need a few small stones pushed down its throat are 
 enough to sink the minnow sufficiently. The tackle 
 is all the better if the uppermost hook has the shank 
 shortened by snapping it off either with a pair of 
 pincers or by inserting the point of it in some crack. 
 Both of these tackles are quite as good for trout 
 as for salmon. But the great trouble about 
 natural minnow as a bait is the difficulty of getting 
 minnows when they are wanted. We have not 
 all got the advantages in that way of a certain 
 famous parson in the Yorkshire dales. His clerk, 
 having refused to fix a christening for Tuesday, 
 the mother is said to have replied, ' T' christening 
 must be Tuesday because t' cakes is made for 
 Tuesday.' ' Nay ! nay ! ' says the clerk, 
 * t' christening can't be Tuesday, for parson 's 
 going fishing Wednesday, and he 's got his 
 minnads in t' font.'
 
 XI 
 
 WORMING 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, The worm is not a thing that at 
 all times, and in all places, is effectual as a means 
 of killing salmon. Its utility as a bait seems to 
 differ in an extraordinary way upon various rivers. 
 In Norway, in bright, low water, the worm often 
 kills when nothing else except a prawn is of 
 the least use. And in many British and Irish 
 rivers the worm is used with success when other 
 methods fail. Still, I have only once caught any 
 salmon upon a worm. On September 6, 1902, I 
 reached the river-side about nine o'clock in the 
 morning, and found that a dead low water had 
 given place to a small but exceedingly muddy 
 flood. Heavy thunderstorms higher up the valley 
 had washed the dusty roads and had swept the 
 mud into the river. So muddy was it that when 
 the upper part of one's brogues were just under 
 water the toes could not be seen at all through the 
 four or five inches of yellow water that covered 
 them. The dogcart that brought me had already 
 gone home before I saw the river or I should have 
 gone home in it ; as it was, I lit a pipe and stayed 
 to watch the flood before getting off my waders 
 in order to walk back. The flood slowly increased, 
 
 105
 
 106 WORMING 
 
 but a fish began rising again and again near the 
 bank and in a place where I knew that the water 
 could not be more than about three feet deep. I 
 determined that he should be offered a worm if one 
 could be got. Some men working in a field close by 
 lent me a spade, and with it four large lobworms 
 were soon dug up in a damp, grassy hollow. They 
 were then bunched on a large hook and fastened 
 to the gut cast. A good-sized pebble was tied to 
 the gut about eighteen inches above the worms, 
 in order to serve as a sinker, and the whole was 
 then carefully dropped into the stream about 
 twenty feet above the fish, which was lying within 
 a rod's length of the bank. As soon as the bait 
 reached the place where the fish had been rising the 
 line stopped, trembled for a few moments, and then 
 began to move slowly up-stream in the way that 
 no fisher can possibly mistake. I had always 
 heard that the salmon should have ample time to 
 gorge the worm, and so he had it. It was not until 
 a series of little tugs began that I struck firmly 
 and sent him flying wildly round the pool which 
 was a little one. A very few minutes of the 
 maddest rushes and splashings left me with a 
 beautiful little 9 Ibs. grilse upon the bank. Look- 
 ing into his mouth, the gut disappears down his 
 throat, and no hook is visible, and no worm either 
 except a bit two inches long and still threaded upon 
 the gut, but about two feet away from his mouth, 
 my pebble having gone long ago. So I cut him 
 open in the middle and I find, struck firmly into
 
 SALMON SWALLOWS WORMS 107 
 
 his stomach, the naked hook. When it went 
 there one cannot doubt that it had the four worms 
 still upon it. Now there is not one scrap of worm 
 to be found inside him. Where and how have 
 they gone ? You may solve that question for 
 yourselves with the aid of the bit of worm still 
 remaining on the cast. It was certainly not there 
 when the salmon ate it. It seems pretty clear 
 that the fish has vomited out the worms on feeling 
 the hook, and that it has been able to eject them 
 notwithstanding that they were partly threaded 
 upon the hook. Once ejected out of the salmon's 
 mouth, any bit of worm still threaded upon the 
 gut will soon get washed along the cast as the fish 
 tears up-stream, dragging the gut and line behind 
 him. But there are some let us say, the extreme 
 blue water school of salmon theorists who believe 
 that a salmon in fresh water never eats anything 
 at all, but merely takes flies and other food into 
 his mouth from curiosity or rage, or, perhaps they 
 will say, for the mere pleasure of spitting it out 
 again. However that may be, this fish so far forgot 
 himself as to swallow those worms. 
 
 Well, having succeeded beyond my hopes in this 
 muddy water, some more worms were soon dug up 
 and put into a broken bottle, and I began to fish 
 the likeliest spots with a big bunch of lobworms. 
 In about an hour, when hope was almost gone, I 
 noticed a wave beginning ten to fifteen feet below 
 and coming up-stream to the place where I had 
 just pitched in my worms. The wave advanced
 
 io8 v WORMING 
 
 to meet the worms, and then there was a swirl 
 under water, about where the worms must be, 
 and, forgetting all my wise advice, I struck in- 
 stantly. The hook caught in the point of the j aw 
 of a fish just about the same size as the last, and 
 in another five minutes he was duly landed. But 
 in this case the worms, though somewhat knocked 
 about, were all still upon the hook. 
 
 More than once since then I have tried the worm, 
 and in bright, clear water as well as in the yellowest 
 mud, but so far I have never caught another fish 
 upon it, nor have I had a single nibble from a 
 salmon. I have caught a sea- trout or two, and 
 sundry eels ; and once a ' dab ' or river flounder, 
 about eight inches in length, contrived to get the 
 lobworm which was on the point of the salmon 
 hook into his mouth, and was tossed ashore, where 
 he was promptly eaten by my dog. 
 
 Still there can be no doubt whatever that in 
 many rivers worm is a deadly bait, and especially 
 in the lowest state of the water. Henderson, for 
 instance, in My Life as an Angler, tells (at p. 198) 
 of his taking with the worm seven salmon in a 
 single stream of the Tweed one autumn morning 
 in the year 1856. He was, as his delightful book 
 shows, a most expert fisher of the clear water worm 
 for trout in the heat of midsummer, and in his 
 opinion the only worms that, as he puts it, ' have 
 power to captivate the fancy of a salmon ' are ' the 
 green sickly-looking dew- worms/ I don't know 
 how that may be, but the way to get such worms
 
 LOBWORMS 109 
 
 in unlimited quantities, if you want them either 
 for salmon or, as I used to do as a small boy, for 
 eel fishing, is to take out a lighted candle after 
 dark, and on every lawn hundreds of this kind of 
 worm will be seen on any dewy night disporting 
 themselves together. But although they are 
 stretched out at full length, each has his tail still 
 in the mouth of his hole, and can flick himself back 
 out of danger with the most surprising quickness. 
 He moves more like a piece of stretched elastic 
 than like a slow-moving worm. At first you will 
 fail to catch two out of every three that you touch. 
 All you have to do, however, is to put your foot 
 lightly upon him before trying to pick him up. 
 You can then pull his tail out of his hole, and once 
 that is done you may remove your foot, for he will 
 make no further effort to escape. He seems to 
 know that escape is hopeless. 
 
 As I have said, I cannot tell you from any 
 personal success what is the best way to fish with 
 a worm for salmon if you have to come down to 
 that. But I know how it is done with much 
 success by the Norwegian in low, clear water. 
 He takes his stand at the head of a good running 
 stream, facing directly down-stream, and with the 
 rod held across his body and pointing away from 
 the stream. He has about a rod's length of line 
 out with a large bunch of worms at the end of it, 
 and if he has a reel he often keeps a good many 
 yards loose at the reel. Then he swings his rod 
 right round in front of him, finally releasing the
 
 no WORMING 
 
 loose line at the reel and throwing the bunch of 
 worms as far up-stream as he can. As they are 
 washed down the stream he raises the rod point to 
 keep the line taut and thus keep the worms rolling 
 along the bottom, and he walks down beside the 
 stream until his worms get swept out of the main 
 current. Then he pulls in his line and repeats 
 the cast again. 
 
 The Norwegian often uses no sinker of any sort, 
 but I understand that in strong water it is advis- 
 able to have a sinker about fourteen to eighteen 
 inches from the worms, and the best sinker is a 
 round bullet of lead at least as big as a boiled pea, 
 and for heavy waters it must be larger than that. 
 The bullet should be split, like a big split-shot, 
 and should be attached to the salmon cast by 
 six inches of horse-hair or of cotton or of gut much 
 thinner than the main cast. Then if the sinker 
 catches fast in the stones you can break it off and 
 save the rest of your tackle. The worms, if a good 
 bunch be used, will not often catch in the stones 
 if you keep the line fairly taut, just feeling the 
 lead rolling along the bottom. It is surprising 
 how seldom, if you do this, a good round lead 
 will catch even upon a rocky bottom. 
 
 In fishing with worm for trout and I suppose 
 it is the same for salmon next to keeping 
 out of the fish's sight, the most important thing 
 that you have to attend to is to keep the line 
 taut and stretched evenly from the rod top to 
 the bait, and not to let the worm be washed down
 
 A TAUT LINE in 
 
 the stream ' anyhow ' with slack line in the 
 water. 
 
 I first learnt that lesson in 1886 when sent out as 
 a boy to fish a brook called the Linburn at Witton 
 in the county of Durham, belonging to an uncle, 
 with whom I was living, and in the charge of a 
 truculent black-bearded keeper of his, known as 
 ' Black Tom.' You never saw Tom. He stood 
 over six feet in height, had a voice like a bull, a 
 short curly beard of raven blackness, a big mouth 
 full of gleaming teeth, and an aspect of swarthy, 
 brawny fierceness that might remind you of some 
 giant in Grimm, or of one of those ferocious 
 guardians of the way who opposed Christian in 
 the Pilgrim's Progress. I hope that the sight of 
 him impressed the local poachers, but I fear that it 
 didn't, for under this fierce exterior Tom had a 
 very kindly heart. He was a nailing good shot, 
 the best that I ever saw at a rabbit in covert ; he 
 seemed to snap at the mere quiver of a leaf, but 
 somehow you always found a rabbit lying near. 
 At winged game Tom was no great performer, and 
 as to his fishing, it was confined to worming the 
 streams after a flood. I have known him to 
 confess without a blush that some shot found at 
 table in a salmon that he had sent up to the house 
 were due to his having ' had to ' slaughter it with 
 a shot-gun as it passed under a bridge. However, 
 when the burn came down in flood, Tom would 
 take down an old string-mended trout rod, get a 
 bag of worms, and sally out to a game that he
 
 ii2 WORMING 
 
 thoroughly knew, and a very heavy creel of trout 
 was certain to be the result. Well, on this day we 
 fished up the stream on opposite sides, I being 
 generally rather ahead of Tom. The water was 
 quite cloudy, and no skill seemed to be required. 
 From the first Tom took fish much faster than I 
 did. I said I thought it must be the worms, but 
 he threw me over his bag and took mine, and of 
 course it made no difference whatever. I caught 
 only a fish here and there, but Tom seemed to 
 find a trout behind every stone. At last we came 
 to a pool below a waterfall, and into this Tom cast 
 his worm four times and each time took a good 
 trout. I was busily fishing opposite him and 
 getting never a nibble. I said, ' Tom, I 'm coming 
 round to try your side.' ' Ay, do/ said he, 
 ' but ye 11 tak nowt till I tell ye/ I did go over, 
 and got nothing except a wretched little misery 
 that I threw in again. Then Tom showed me 
 what was the matter. It was that I was fishing 
 with a slack line, and he assured me that if I kept 
 the line taut, as he did, I should catch them just as 
 easily as he. Tom's remedy, like the washing in 
 Jordan, seemed too simple for anything, but I 
 tried it and caught fish after fish. Then I went 
 back to my side of the pool where I had found no 
 takers and immediately caught four or five good 
 trout. When Tom showed me the way to do it I 
 had got six fish and he had got thirty-five. Before 
 we left that pool I had taken nine good trout out 
 of it, and for the rest of the day managed to get
 
 A TAUT LINE 113 
 
 about half as many as Tom did of these chubby, 
 lively, brook trout, averaging about five or six to 
 the pound. 
 
 It is a lesson that I have never forgotten, and it 
 applies to every kind of fishing. With a slack line 
 you neither bring the fish to your hook, nor do you 
 strike such as do unwarily come there. 
 
 H
 
 XII 
 
 ONE OF OUR BEST DAYS 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, Now away with all this teaching : 
 come with me to the fishing, and let us go again 
 over one of our very best days. And so that the 
 details may be fresh, we will take a day that is not 
 only one of our best, but is also, at this present 
 moment, only two days old. 
 
 Yesterday, September 6, 1908, a flood stopped 
 all fishing. This morning the river is very high, 
 and is black as ink with the stained water coming 
 off the peat that lies away up on the moorlands 
 forty miles away. It is still above fishing height, 
 although it has already fallen many feet. 
 
 There is a good deal of dirt in the water, but we 
 hope that it will run down into good order before 
 evening. It is of no use to make an early start, 
 but there may be a chance during the morning 
 with a big minnow. 
 
 About ten o'clock Godfrey and I go up to the 
 fishing hut. When we get there a drizzling rain 
 is falling, the wind is from the south-east, and 
 everything looks miserable. We each begin to 
 fish with a big five-inch phantom minnow well 
 stuffed with bits of lead wire to make it sink as 
 deeply as possible. We each fish the quietest 
 
 114
 
 TWO FISH 115 
 
 water that we can find, going in opposite ways, and 
 you two shall come with me. 
 
 For a long time we see nothing. Then suddenly 
 in an eddy, just as the minnow is being lifted out, 
 there is a slight swirl and a little nicking splash, 
 and some fish has got the minnow and has bolted 
 out into the current. Only a bull-trout, I expect. 
 No ! a good fish it is ; look at that determined, 
 vicious tugging and at the short, steel-centred 
 rod doubling up, yet without bringing the fish to 
 the surface even in that strong water. 
 
 Off he goes for the other side of the river, 
 and we will take this opportunity of pulling 
 him down-stream past that great mass of snags 
 at the next point, so that we may land him on 
 the sandy spit where the Devil's Water comes 
 into the main stream. Again and again he 
 refuses to come down, and fights his way up 
 past the snags and broken weiring, but at last 
 he is got past the point and is soon landed on 
 the sand, a cock fish with many sea-lice, but 
 already showing a faint reddish autumn colour, 
 and weighing 13 Ibs. 
 
 That eddy is a find. We will try it again. At 
 the very tail of it, close under the bank, ' jug ' 
 goes the rod and we are fast in another fish. 
 This fellow makes no trouble whatever about going 
 down past the snags to reach a landing-place. 
 He, like the famous wife of Jack Spratt, prefers 
 exactly the opposite course to his fellow, and he 
 straightway bolts down-stream and keeps on
 
 u6 ONE OF OUR BEST DAYS 
 
 tearing off the line in repeated rushes as we run 
 down the high, rough bank and scramble over a 
 fence. Soon he has reached and passed the 
 Devil's Water foot and is nearing the rapids which 
 are some seventy yards below it. He means going 
 through these rapids into the next pool, but to-day 
 we cannot cross the Devil's Water anywhere near 
 its mouth, and so at all costs he must not go down. 
 Already he has taken more than sixty yards of line, 
 and is out beyond some formidable stakes just 
 above the rapids. The fish must break rather 
 than be allowed to go any farther, so the line is 
 seized and held fast. A fierce splashing struggle 
 in the glassy water above the rapid ends in favour 
 of steel wire and sound tackle, and slowly the fish 
 comes up and out of danger. His one great run 
 has finished him, and within little more than five 
 minutes of the hooking he is gaffed and weighed 
 14 Ibs. a cock fish, and as bright as new-minted 
 silver. 
 
 We now put on long waders and go up the Devil's 
 Water to cross it and fish the pool below. The 
 river is very broad, and the Devil's Water, though 
 high, is clear, so it looks as if the fish might see a 
 fly below the junction. We go over the pool with 
 a huge fly a Jock Scott and then with a great 
 flaring yellow turkey. When that has proved 
 vain we return to the spinning rod. The very first 
 cast yields a most beautifully shaped cock fish of 
 24 Ibs., which must have been lying in only a 
 foot or two of water at the throat of the rush.
 
 A SHORT LINE 117 
 
 There he grabs the minnow when it has been 
 wound up to within ten feet of the rod point. 
 Did you see me strike hard and firmly, keeping 
 the rod low, and then raise the rod, letting the 
 line fly off the reel almost unchecked ? When a 
 big fish takes on a very short line like this you 
 must keep cool and strike firmly, and then instantly 
 and freely let him have line, even at the risk of 
 the reel overrunning, or of the line being slack for 
 a second or two. If you try to hold the fish on 
 this short line you will almost certainly lose 
 him, and you will probably damage your rod as 
 well. 
 
 A few casts lower down the pool a fish of 14 Ibs. 
 seizes the minnow and is landed, and then after a 
 long trial at the very tail of the pool a fish snatches 
 the bait and goes off on a tremendous expedition. 
 First he dashes madly round the pool, just breaking 
 the surface with his tail, then he sets his face for 
 the sea and hustles us down-stream, at a run, for 
 just short of half a mile, gradually getting near the 
 opposite bank a hundred yards away, but all the 
 time, or nearly so, keeping close to the surface in 
 a most unusual way. He simply must be foul 
 hooked. Finally he stops running, and after a 
 long, wearisome jiggering is brought to shore and 
 gaffed. He has the tail triangle in the corner of 
 his mouth, but the other triangle is firmly fixed in 
 his right pectoral fin, taking the whole pull of the 
 line, and that seems to explain his activity and 
 the power that he had in the strong stream, though 
 
 H2
 
 ir8 ONE OF OUR BEST DAYS 
 
 he was by no means a large fish, weighing only 
 12 Ibs. 
 
 It is now two o'clock, the rain is still falling, 
 and wet through we get back to the fishing hut to 
 find that Godfrey, though using a precisely similar 
 minnow, has been so unlucky as to have had no 
 fish, not even a run from any fish. 
 
 We are both sick of minnowing, and we have 
 kept the quietest and best pool till the afternoon 
 in order to fish it with the fly. But this wind, now 
 nearly due east, and the cold rain are disheartening, 
 and it is past three o'clock when we begin again. 
 Godfrey goes first with a very big Dusty Miller, and 
 we follow with a small Jock Scott. In a moment 
 a fish snatches the Dusty Miller, but the hook 
 badly tempered or perhaps lodging on a bone 
 opens out and lets him go. A big Popham is put 
 on. Five minutes later a fish grabs it, and this 
 time takes both the Popham and also half God- 
 frey's cast. Standing out in the stream with 
 hands trembling with excitement, he ties on 
 another Popham at the end of his remaining two 
 feet of single gut, and, resolving not to strike again 
 in such a stream, he begins anew, and after another 
 twenty casts, hooks a good fish. This time all 
 goes well, and in due season we gaff this fish, a 
 real beauty of 18 Ibs., and the biggest that he has 
 caught so far. But better is to come for him. 
 Again he begins the pool a very strong dub at 
 the deepest part, and almost immediately hooks 
 and presently lands a clinking good fish, weighing
 
 A LOST FISH 119 
 
 20 Ibs. Meanwhile, fishing with a small fly, we 
 have not had even one rise, but on making an 
 extra long cast to a shallow ledge in midstream, 
 there is a big boiling rise, and the fly is snatched 
 almost as it touches the water. The fish of 
 17 or 18 Ibs. immediately begins flinging himself 
 about out of the water and head over heels in 
 all directions. After a few minutes he changes his 
 tactics and bores across the river, over many great 
 boulders which, in a lower water, stand clear out, 
 until he finds himself right under the willows that 
 fringe the bank. Once he is safely got back into 
 the stream, but he repeats the move, and this time 
 he works his way for eight or ten yards up-stream 
 under the fringe of willows, his tail breaking the 
 surface as he goes. Though the eighteen-foot rod 
 is being held high, indeed with the reel overhead, 
 yet there is a great length of line out, seventy or 
 eighty yards, and a good deal is sagging in the 
 water behind the fish. Presently he turns down 
 again, we feel the line grate and catch, then we 
 see the fish splash, and the line conies back loose 
 with the twisted gut of the cast broken about 
 eight inches from the reel line. 
 
 He is gone, and I really think we do not much 
 grudge him his freedom ; he has been such a 
 gallant fighter. At least we say so on the spot, 
 and try to think that we mean it. 
 
 Godfrey, who had come down to ply the gaff for 
 us, goes back and instantly hooks and lands a 
 grilse of 7 Ibs. This is reversing the fortunes of
 
 120 ONE OF OUR BEST DAYS 
 
 the morning with a vengeance. Since luncheon 
 he has got three fish and lost two, and we have not 
 landed one. So up goes a big Jock Scott in place 
 of the lost small one, and in a very few minutes a 
 heavy pull under water announces that the change 
 has worked. Godfrey comes down and presently 
 gaffs for us a good fish of 20 Ibs. Then he himself 
 begins to fish, and no sooner is his line out than a 
 fish quite close inshore snatches his last Popham 
 and breaks it off. Immediately he puts on the 
 nearest fly that he has to the lost one, and at once 
 gets hold of an exceedingly lively fourteen-pounder 
 at the very same spot, and we hurry up the gravel 
 bed to watch the fun and to gaff the fish for him, 
 anxiously expecting to find the lost Popham in 
 his jaws. He is landed right enough, but the 
 other fly is not to be found, though we both feel 
 perfectly certain that it is the same fish that took 
 the first fly. We then return and begin casting 
 again at the spot where we had taken the last fish, 
 and twenty yards lower down there comes a slight 
 touch. The cast is repeated and the touch 
 becomes a violent pull, and we are fast in another 
 good fish. He flings himself out once twice 
 thrice, and then bolts down the long rapids into 
 the next pool. There he wastes much precious 
 time in a backwater, refusing either to fight hard 
 or to come near the gaff. However, Godfrey, 
 seeing the fight so long, comes down in time to 
 gaff him for me. He proves to be just over 20 Ibs., 
 and he has taken quite twenty-five minutes to
 
 FLOATING FISH HOME 121 
 
 land. When we begin again the darkness is fast 
 coming on, and we both fish down our big pool 
 without a rise. Then, as a last chance, we rush 
 off to try the tail of a pool higher up. Precious 
 time is wasted in getting there, but the chance 
 turns out trumps, and we hook and safely land a 
 nice fish of 18 Ibs. It is now past seven o'clock 
 and almost pitch dark, though the rain, which we 
 hardly noticed in the keenness of our fishing, has 
 stopped. The dogcart was to meet us at the cross- 
 roads at a quarter to seven, and it is hopeless to 
 think of taking all these fish so far, so we must be 
 content to get them to the fishing hut and leave 
 them there for the night. But here are eight fish 
 averaging about 16 Ibs. apiece, and we are half a 
 mile above the hut. Well, Godfrey carries down 
 the rods and baskets and I tie a stout cord through 
 the jaw of one fish, then string the other seven upon 
 the cord and simply wade down the half-mile of 
 water, towing the fish behind me. The night is 
 very dark, and as one wades down, most of the 
 time waist deep in the dark river under the wooded 
 banks, it is difficult to believe that these eight big 
 fish are still upon the string. In the water they 
 weigh, of course, absolutely nothing, though out of 
 it they weigh together a good deal more than a 
 hundredweight. Time and again one pulls them 
 to the surface to convince oneself that they are 
 really there, and yet in a few minutes the same 
 curious conviction returns upon you that most of 
 them must have slipped off by some means. It
 
 122 ONE OF OUR BEST DAYS 
 
 makes one realise a little better the folly of holding 
 up a tired salmon as one so often sees people do 
 in such a way that his head and shoulders are 
 practically lifted out of the water. Many a fish, 
 and more especially many a grilse and small 
 salmon, have we lost in this way. To you, my 
 boys, I would say, Never hold the head of any 
 salmon or large fish out of the water, however 
 tired he may be. When reeled up short, if the fish 
 is on the surface, don't hold the rod point above 
 him, but hold it sideways or down-stream, so that it 
 does not lift him upwards. If the rod is lifting 
 any part of the fish's weight that can only be so 
 if some part of the fish is being held above water 
 then every kick that the fish gives, makes, as he falls 
 back, a very sudden twanging jerk on the line and 
 on the rod top, and if the hold is at all weakened 
 by the fight it will almost certainly give way. 
 After the first few struggles that follow the taking 
 of the fly there is no stage of the fight at which so 
 many fish are lost as that in which the tired fish 
 is resisting the final efforts to bring him to shore, 
 and the cause of loss is almost always a plain and 
 preventible want of care. One forgets that on a 
 very short line the jerks are ten times more sudden 
 and more severe than they are when there is a 
 fair length of line out and the rod is not doubled 
 up like half a hoop. 
 
 Well, to return to our catch. Here we are at 
 the fishing hut. Candle-ends are lighted, the fish 
 are laid out on the floor, waders are taken off and
 
 SEPTEMBER 7 TH, 1908
 
 THE TOTAL 123 
 
 rods taken down, and we hasten off to the dog- 
 cart and so home to mulled claret and hot baths, 
 and a dinner that we are almost too tired to 
 eat. 
 
 It has rained and blown all day, and next 
 morning a flood in the river greets our earliest 
 waking eyes. So the fish are sent for and brought 
 home and are carefully weighed, and there being 
 nothing to do at the river we pass the time away 
 by laying out the whole catch upon a grassy bank 
 and taking a photograph of them. 
 
 We have rather blessed that flood since then, as 
 without it we should not have had the photograph 
 by which to remember that day. You may see it 
 next this page. Godfrey's fish weighed 20, 18, 
 14, and 17 Ibs. ; ours 24, 20, 20, 18, 16, 14, 14, 13, 
 and 12 Ibs. His four weighed 59 Ibs. ; our 
 nine 151 Ibs., an average of just upon 17 Ibs. 
 apiece. 
 
 Before this we had once taken nine salmon and 
 two bull-trout in a day, but the salmon were not 
 such good fish as these, and the bull-trout hardly 
 count. These fish were all beauties. Just look 
 at them ! I think that fish of 24 Ibs., which you 
 see near the middle of the picture, is as well shaped 
 and as hog-backed as you could wish any salmon, 
 and so are the three twenty-pounders on the right 
 of him. 
 
 For real joy of success I do not think that this 
 day could compare at all with my best spring day 
 with five salmon landed on the fly and two more
 
 i2 4 ONE OF OUR BEST DAYS 
 
 fish lost, or even with four fish taken on a day in 
 March or April, but still it was a great day, and 
 there was one glorious hour in it, for I have never 
 known fish take the fly more madly than these did 
 during a part of that miserably cold afternoon, 
 although most of the rises did not come my way. 
 The rain pelted steadily, and the wind, veering 
 from south-east to east and then to north-east, 
 blew more or less in our faces all day ; the river 
 was, as we usually think, too high for the fly, yet 
 the fish that afternoon would not be denied. It 
 was a glorious piece of luck, and all the more so 
 because it was wholly unexpected. I hope that 
 you may both be lucky enough to find such days, 
 but they will not be many, so fish hard, and put on 
 a good big fly after a flood. One other thing I 
 have to say, don't be discouraged by rain or by an 
 east wind why, perhaps the very best day's 
 salmon fishing of which we have any record was 
 the 9th of April 1795, when the tenth Lord Home, 
 fishing on the Dee, took thirty-eight salmon, of 
 weights ranging from 6 to 36 Ibs., on his own 
 fifteen-foot rod. One has read of catching grilse 
 on the Grimersta, like troutlets, by the score, but 
 Lord Home's day, even allowing for a large number 
 of kelts, which were all lawful fish in those days, 
 is, to my mind, a far greater performance. And 
 that 9th of April of the year 1795 was a rainy day, 
 with an east wind blowing. I wonder what salmon 
 fisher's mind fails to bridge that hundred years. 
 Can't you see the rain pattering on the grey water,
 
 APRIL 1795 125 
 
 ruffled by a cold wind, and a stout-hearted angler, 
 long ago crumbled into dust, yet still, with his 
 short rod and his thick hair line, fishing envied of 
 us all ? I think that it is the matter-of-fact 
 description of ill weather on that long-past day 
 that brings it so vividly to the eye.
 
 XIII 
 
 ON OTTERS AND OTHER POACHERS 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, There are two kinds of otters 
 that come or may come within the range of an 
 angler's vision. Both are notorious as poachers, 
 but the one otter is a living thing, the other is an 
 inanimate device of wood and lead. The use of 
 the latter in this country is illegal, though it is far 
 from being unknown, but in Norway and Sweden 
 you may find one or more of them by the side of 
 every lake that has fish in it or at least, if you 
 don't find them, it will not be because the otters 
 are not there. 
 
 This otter is simply a piece of board about 
 eighteen inches to two feet long and six to eight 
 inches deep, with a keel of lead fastened along one 
 side of the board to make it ride in the water 
 upright on that edge. Then the line is fastened 
 to the board just as the string is fastened to a kite. 
 The thing is, in fact, nothing but a water kite, and 
 by walking along the shore and towing the line 
 the ' otter ' is made to run out on the surface of 
 the lake and to travel along nearly parallel to the 
 shore, whilst the flies, which are tied to the line at 
 intervals, bob and dribble along the surface of the 
 
 126
 
 AN 'OTTER' BOARD 127 
 
 water in a way that is most tempting and most 
 fatal to the fish. The first time that I saw an 
 otter at work was on my earliest visit to Norway 
 over ten years ago. On the strength of reports of 
 trout many and big to be had in a certain lake 
 among the mountains on the edge of the Hardanger 
 Vidde, I and another had taken our rods and made 
 a toilsome journey into the hills along the vilest 
 track that you can conceive. No one but a Norse- 
 man would have called it a path at all. At last we 
 sighted our El Dorado, a lonely pool, very narrow 
 and about a mile long, with the left-hand edge 
 lying against the foot of a rocky cliff, whilst the 
 other bank was formed by a gentle slope of moor- 
 land covered with patches of cloudberries. One 
 solitary native was to be seen close to the lake. 
 Presently we sighted this wretched little board 
 sailing merrily along abreast of him. Our disgust 
 was great, but was tempered with the hope of 
 actually seeing for ourselves the exceeding de- 
 structiveness of this famous poaching dodge. 
 We approached the native and tried our whole 
 stock of Norsk upon him. I will spare you the 
 details of it, but the end of it was that the native 
 said something unintelligible, then clapped his 
 breeches-pocket, thrust in his hand, and drew out 
 a wet and bleeding trout weighing about three- 
 quarters of a pound. Then, chiefly by signs, we 
 learnt that he lived in a saeter close by, that 
 there were very few fish in the lake, and that this 
 was an unusually big one, and that he would be
 
 128 ON OTTERS AND OTHER POACHERS 
 
 very glad to see us catch something. We tried 
 hard to oblige him, but could only produce two 
 sizeable trout, and it was small wonder, for we 
 saw that our friend had made quite a path along 
 the edge of the lake by his daily tramping to and 
 fro with his infernal engine. The day, however, 
 was not quite a failure, for we took our revenge 
 upon his cloudberries (multa baer), and, whilst I 
 think of it, my boys, let me tell you never to accept 
 at least without the most careful questioning 
 a Norseman's report of good trout fishing to be had 
 in any lake or river. He has no idea of misleading 
 you, but it only means that he has heard of some 
 one who, possibly with a net or perhaps a dozen 
 night lines, has once caught a good basket of trout 
 in that water. But if you ask him in detail 
 whether he himself has seen fish caught there, 
 whether it was with the fly or with ' sleuk ' 
 (minnow), how many the fish were and how long, 
 and how often he has known such catches made and 
 in what months, he will try to answer you quite 
 truthfully, and you can then divide the result by 
 two and hope for the best. But as for the Norse- 
 man himself, if he looks a good fellow, take him 
 with you fishing, or climbing, or stalking the 
 reindeer or what you will and, taking him, treat 
 him like a brother, and you will gain a friend 
 who will never flatter you and will never forget 
 you, and, what is more, a friend whose staunch 
 loyalty and frank, uncringing manliness you will 
 never forget. At least that has been many times
 
 NORWAY 129 
 
 my good fortune with them, and I believe it to be 
 in no way unusual. 
 
 And now, my boys, whilst I am speaking of 
 Norway, let me give you one piece of advice. 
 When you go amongst people who are poor and 
 who live simply, as they do in Norway, always be 
 on the watch to see that you are not trespassing 
 on their kindness, and are not expecting them to 
 do things for you that they would never think of 
 doing for one another. Remember that the 
 customs of one country are not those of another, 
 and be careful to see that you give no unnecessary 
 trouble, and do everything for yourself. Never 
 forget the truth that was once expressed in his 
 own way by a Maori chief when he said, after he 
 had known Bishop Selwyn, ' Gentleman gentle- 
 man not mind what he do ; piggy gentleman 
 always very particular.' You may talk about 
 ' manners makyth man ' ; I think that savage 
 chief got a great deal nearer to the true heart of 
 things when he picked out this as his test of the 
 real and the pinchbeck article in gentlemen. 
 
 And it is not only in Norway that you '11 find 
 this useful. Nothing has caused more misunder- 
 standing on both sides in our Colonies and in all 
 new countries than the perfectly innocent and 
 unwitting assumption that you will have every- 
 thing done for you just as it is in England. Many 
 a man has found to his vexation that his host or 
 his host's daughters were cleaning his boots for 
 him because he was obviously expecting or even
 
 130 ON OTTERS AND OTHER POACHERS 
 
 asking for them to be done, and the servants, 
 following the custom of the country, absolutely 
 declined to touch them. Even in the hotels you 
 may put your boots outside your door, but no one 
 cleans them. You just take brown boots and 
 clean them yourself, and you keep your eyes open 
 for other little things of the same kind, and very 
 difficult it is to see them. 
 
 However, to return to the otter, we have learnt 
 since then that its evil reputation does not belie 
 it and that it can kill fish. We were again to- 
 gether in Norway last year, and coming over the 
 fjeld we saw a man carrying, in loops of string, 
 what we at first took to be two large bunches of 
 grey ptarmigan. When we got nearer we saw that 
 his burden was nothing but fish. There were some 
 eight or ten fine trout, the least weighing a pound 
 and a half, four weighing about 4 Ibs. apiece, and 
 one that must have been well over 5 Ibs. He 
 told us that he had caught them with the otter 
 which he was carrying and in a lake a few miles 
 away, across the mountains, and, as you may 
 believe, we took down its name and address pretty 
 carefully. He said that he had caught them 
 all in a very short time, and then had to stop 
 fishing because he had already got more fish than 
 he could carry. 
 
 And now of our English otters. I have said 
 that they are notorious as poachers, but I believe 
 that their ill-fame, so far as salmon goes, is largely 
 undeserved. Stories about finding brilliant new-
 
 OTTERS AND SALMON 131 
 
 run salmon on the river-bank with a small piece 
 bitten out of the shoulder by an otter are common 
 in books on fishing, but I have fished for twenty 
 years in rivers where otters were abundant, where 
 one saw them constantly, and where one may see 
 their fresh seal in the sand every day, and I entirely 
 disbelieve that they do any serious harm to salmon. 
 Perhaps in a small stream, or in the spawning 
 season when fish are weak, the otters may catch 
 and devour a weak or dying fish or a badly mended 
 kelt. Even that is not, I think, very common, 
 though it is always dangerous to make positive 
 generalisations from one's own limited experience. 
 I have known one case where several otters had 
 eaten and, from the fresh blood and scales lying 
 about, seemed also to have killed a big salmon. 
 Once I saw the fresh body of a bull-trout kelt of 
 6 or 7 Ibs. which for some days, and once before 
 my eyes, was visited and partly eaten by an otter, 
 but whether he had killed it or not I cannot say. 
 He had certainly not either killed or found it 
 where it lay, on a grassy bank some eight feet 
 above the river. Several times I have known 
 them to eat the carcasses of dead kelts which they 
 had certainly not killed, and once in September 
 1908 I marked the daily eating of a salmon of 
 about 1 6 Ibs. weight which I saw to be a stale, 
 dead fish the day the otter ate the first small piece 
 of him. After three days the carcass, still with 
 only some 5 or 6 Ibs. eaten away, was carried 
 straight across a swift pool and left half out of the
 
 132 ON OTTERS AND OTHER POACHERS 
 
 water on the opposite side whence two days later 
 it was washed away by a flood. 
 
 The first of these occasions, when I think that the 
 otters had really killed their salmon, was in 1902, 
 a season of great drought. The river was very 
 low, and disease began to appear amongst the fish 
 in the shape of whitish spots of fungus, like the 
 mould that grows upon jam, which appeared on 
 the head or gill covers of the fish. That autumn 
 I found by the water the bodies of four fish on 
 which otters had certainly been feeding, but I 
 could see nothing to determine whether or no they 
 had been taken whilst alive ; certainly they all were 
 diseased. But on October 3, beside the rush at 
 the head of a very strong pool I came upon a mass 
 of pellets of spawn, fresh blood and scales, together 
 with the two pectoral fins of a big salmon. Several 
 large stones had been displaced, the sand was much 
 torn up, and I could see the marks of several otters. 
 It looked as if a great battle had taken place there, 
 and of the two fins left one had a large piece, the 
 shape and size of an otter's mouth, bitten clean 
 out of the end of it. The head, bones, and the 
 rest of the carcass were nowhere to be found, 
 though I made a careful search. However, some 
 hundred and fifty yards above the place there is an 
 otter's holt under the roots of a bunch of alders, 
 and on some stones near that I found some more 
 pellets of spawn, so I have little doubt that the 
 body had been carried up there to feed the cubs. 
 On comparing the pectoral fins with those of a
 
 FISH EATEN 133 
 
 i5-lb. salmon caught the same day it was plain 
 that the fish killed by the otters had been con- 
 siderably larger than this, if it also was a salmon, 
 but the pectoral fin of a bull-trout is larger than 
 that of a salmon of equal weight. I can hardly 
 think that the fish could have been strong and 
 well. The kill had taken place beside and near 
 the head of a very strong stream where one would 
 think that the fish would have every chance of 
 escape, or at any rate would have carried the otters 
 down the pool a very long way before they could 
 have landed him. 
 
 In that year I saw more signs of otters eating 
 salmon than in all the other twenty and more that 
 I have fished, and I believe that to have been due 
 to the weakness of the fish caused by disease, and 
 that most of these fish were dead or dying when 
 taken by the otters. 
 
 Being addicted to fishing both early in the morn- 
 ing and late in the evening, I have often had the 
 good fortune to see the otters fishing. Once a fine 
 dog otter swam up to me and landed almost at my 
 feet, and on one October evening at sunset I had 
 lifted my right foot to step upon what I took for 
 a brown lump of wood lying amongst some 
 rubbish beside a log, when the lump, which 
 was an otter lying asleep there, suddenly sprang 
 into the river almost causing me to fall in after 
 it. In 1889, on the Ure in the North Riding 
 of Yorkshire, a pair of otters came up over a rapid 
 and began fishing the shallows at the foot of the 
 
 12
 
 134 ON OTTERS AND OTHER POACHERS 
 
 pool where I was. Luckily they did not see me, 
 and by lying along the trunk of an overhanging 
 tree I had a good view of their fishing for nearly 
 a quarter of an hour. Then another fisherman 
 appeared, and the otters both went down-stream. 
 Again, on the river Tyne on June 14, 1905, with 
 your Uncle D'Arcy, we saw an otter in broad sun- 
 light about four o'clock in the afternoon busily 
 fishing amongst the rocks opposite to us. He 
 swam round each boulder, keeping his head poked 
 under the edge of it ; several times he found a hole 
 big enough to allow him to dive right under the 
 rock and come up on the other side. After some 
 ten minutes he caught an eel about fourteen inches 
 long and as thick as one's thumb. This he brought 
 out on to a big flat rock and there he ate it. All 
 this time we were in full view of him, and I was 
 not twenty-five yards away, and the sound of his 
 teeth tearing the eel to pieces was plainly audible 
 to us. It seemed a remarkably tough and 
 leathery morsel, too, for it sounded like tearing up 
 an old boot. Next, the otter went up the stream, 
 crossed it to our side and then came across the 
 gravel bed to get to some willows, but finding 
 D'Arcy in front of him he went back to the water 
 and swam across and disappeared. A quarter 
 of an hour later he came out from some bushes, 
 crossed the river about sixty yards above us, and 
 began fishing in the very shallow water on our 
 side of it. I put down my salmon rod and began 
 to stalk him. Every time he put his head under
 
 CATCHING AN OTTER 135 
 
 water I pressed on, and when he thrust his head 
 out to breathe I stood stock still. At last, much 
 to my surprise, I got within ten feet of him and 
 could see everything that he was doing, could see 
 him dashing in among the tiny fry collected in 
 the shallows. Then he poked his head under the 
 edge of a flat stone. I advanced a couple of steps, 
 and as he came up to breathe he saw me. I 
 jumped forward and raked him ashore with the 
 gaff, which had a cork on, but a quarter of an inch 
 of steel projected through it. The point of the 
 gaff caught in the loose skin of his flank, but the 
 hide is so tough as you know who have seen 
 otters killed by hounds that the gaff did not 
 pierce it, but I was able to swing him off the 
 ground and grab him by the tail. By that I carried 
 him kicking, twisting up, and snapping to the bank 
 and thence to the fishing hut, where we shut him 
 up until the next day, when we brought up the 
 ladies to see him released. On finding himself 
 free again he ran in a great hurry to the water, 
 but once there he seemed quite confident, swam 
 steadily up the shallows and then landed and 
 disappeared in a holt. 
 
 He was a small dog otter, weighing perhaps 
 12 to 15 Ibs. At first we had thought he was 
 either blind or else blinded by the sunlight, but 
 when he was caught we could see nothing wrong 
 with his eyes, and his extraordinary lack of caution 
 must have been due either to the bright sun or, 
 as I have since been inclined to think, he may
 
 136 ON OTTERS AND OTHER POACHERS 
 
 possibly have been at some time tamed or made a 
 pet of. But we could never hear of there being 
 any tame otter in the district, still less of any such 
 having been lost. However that may be, he gave us 
 a most interesting and delightful view of an otter's 
 methods of fishing. His methodical quartering of 
 the ground was wonderful, and when he caught 
 the eel it hardly wriggled at all ; he seemed to 
 have paralysed it at once with his bites.
 
 XIV 
 
 SOME MORE POACHERS 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, I have said that otters are not a 
 serious danger to a full-grown salmon. His real 
 foes are seals and porpoises in the sea and netsmen 
 on the coasts and in the rivers. But far worse 
 than all these together are the scoundrels who, in 
 defiance of the law and of the rights of their neigh- 
 bours, openly or secretly discharge poison and 
 pollution into our streams. 
 
 The seals and porpoises are a very real danger. 
 In one season during which I was fishing in the 
 river Tyne, one out of every five fish taken on the 
 water was marked with more or less severe gashes 
 and tooth marks, and in all the rivers on the north- 
 east coast fish showing wounds from that cause 
 are not uncommon. But the net fisher in the river 
 itself is an even more deadly foe to the spring and 
 early summer fish, for those are the slow-running 
 fish, dawdling in the tideway and in the lower 
 reaches, and the nets, where they are numerous, 
 mop up the majority of such fish. It is quite 
 certain that in many rivers which are not great 
 ' spring ' rivers, only a small proportion of the 
 fish which spawn in them in winter come in at all 
 as spring fish during the course of their lives. 
 
 137
 
 138 SOME MORE POACHERS 
 
 Such as do run in spring are the very best fish of the 
 whole lot, the best in condition and the boldest and 
 strongest fighters of the whole year, yet we do our 
 very utmost to kill them out by allowing netting 
 which is practically continuous, in the lower reaches 
 of the rivers. For the small weekly close time is 
 not enough to let the slowly running spring fish 
 get past all the netting stations. Those fish 
 which habitually come into the rivers in September 
 or later escape the river nets altogether, but we 
 steadily do our best to eliminate all the fish which 
 have the habit of running in spring or summer. 
 Just consider how slowly these fish run and how 
 they are exposed to the dangers of the nets in the 
 lower reaches of a river. In the close time before 
 the season of 1897 began, one hundred and fifty 
 clean spring fish were marked in the river Spey. 
 Of these sixty-seven were retaken after the 
 season opened ; thirty-four of them had moved up 
 the river, twenty-five had dropped down, and 
 eight were recaptured at or about the places at 
 which they had been marked. 
 
 In most rivers, at any rate, I do not think that 
 fair and ordinary rod fishing levies any very 
 appreciable toll upon the salmon when compared 
 with the numbers of fish coming into the river. 
 On one lucky day a single net will not unfrequently 
 take as many salmon as are taken with the rod in 
 a whole season on some of the best rod fishings of 
 the river, and in a single week, when fish are run- 
 ning, the various nets may, and often do, take as
 
 HUMAN POACHERS 139 
 
 many fish as fall to rod and line in that river 
 throughout the whole season. But perhaps it is 
 not easy to be just when one sees fifteen or twenty 
 beautiful spring fish struggling in the meshes of a 
 net, or hears of twelve hundred salmon and sea- 
 trout as the total for a week's fishing at one netting 
 station on one of our smaller rivers, or of from 
 one to two thousand fish coming into the Tay 
 Fishery Company's fish-houses in one day at 
 certain times of the year. 
 
 Human poachers on the spawning beds and in 
 the moorland streams still do a good deal of 
 damage. In the Teviot, for instance, one party 
 from Hawick was caught in November 1908 with 
 over a hundred salmon in sacks on the bank, all 
 taken out with the gaff. I have been told by a 
 veteran poacher of the head-waters of the river 
 Eden that the first fish arrive in the moorland 
 streams as early as the end of September, and 
 that during October and early November his sport 
 with torch and cleek, or leister, is at its best, and 
 the fish are good eating, at least if kippered ; but 
 that as soon as hard frost sets in the fish become 
 soft and their flesh poor and sludgy, and that after 
 that they are not worth taking. That may be the 
 view of the superior craftsman, but the weaver or 
 the pitman or the youthful yokel has, I fancy, few 
 scruples, and cares little whether the fish that he 
 gets are or are not fit for the food of pigs. The 
 excitement of the sport and the risk of being 
 captured themselves make the fish caught taste at
 
 140 SOME MORE POACHERS 
 
 any rate tolerable, just as the vivid green apple 
 does to the schoolboy who has ' bagged ' it from 
 an orchard long before the fruit is at all fit to 
 eat. 
 
 Formerly the salmon spear or the clodding 
 (throwing) leister were the usual weapon even of 
 the solitary poacher, and there was something of 
 wild dignity about their open defiance of the law, 
 but now the more common poacher is a hero 
 who sneaks about the river-banks carrying in his 
 hand a stick, ostensibly a walking-stick or staff, 
 and in his pocket a gaff hook and some stout string. 
 Once a fish is spotted within his reach the harmless 
 stick quickly becomes a gaff, and can as quickly 
 resume its humbler form if any watcher or keeper 
 should appear. The old hand, apprehensive of 
 searching, takes care to hook the gaff-head into 
 the lining of his coat or into part of his clothing. 
 Quite recently an amusing letter in the Field 
 related the conviction by Cumberland justices of 
 an old poacher of eighty whose pockets had been 
 twice carefully searched, but who still taunted 
 the keeper to have another look. The third search 
 did it. The hook with the string wet was found 
 at the old rascal's back hanging from the fork of 
 his braces. 
 
 A bullet from a Mannlicher or from a .303 rifle 
 is a very effective instrument for poaching a 
 salmon, and this is not unknown to some sky- 
 larking deerstalkers in the North of Scotland. 
 But in the crystal clear rivers of Canada and of
 
 A RIFLE BULLET 141 
 
 New Zealand many salmon or great trout die 
 every year by shooting. The fish are not hit by 
 the rifle bullet that is quite unnecessary. They 
 are generally picked up without a mark on their 
 bodies, stunned apparently by the shock caused 
 by the bullet striking the incompressible water 
 in their direction. As a matter of fact, owing to 
 the refraction of the rays of light on passing from 
 water to air, the fish, when seen from the bank or 
 from any position except one directly above him, 
 is, as you know, not exactly in the place that he 
 seems to your eye to occupy, but is really lying a 
 little deeper in the water. You know that if you 
 put a stick slanting into the water you see 
 it appear to bend upward, though one knows 
 that it must go straight. The bullet, too, on 
 striking the water at an angle is deflected, and, 
 unless you can shoot at the fish from directly 
 above him, it is a matter of considerable difficulty 
 to hit him. That, however, the sporting farmer 
 in those two Dominions has found to be un- 
 necessary, and so, in out-of-the-way districts, you 
 may see him take down his rifle in the most 
 matter-of-fact way to go out and shoot a fish 
 for your supper. 
 
 Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The temptations of 
 river watchers to do a little poaching on their own 
 account are great. They have to spend long days 
 and longer nights on unfrequented river-banks, 
 and when they see a salmon lying in some place 
 where it would be the easiest thing in the world
 
 142 SOME MORE POACHERS 
 
 to take him, and where nobody's fishing would be 
 injured, it is not much to be wondered at if they 
 sometimes look the other way whilst a friend takes 
 the salmon, or even if they take him themselves. 
 A certain sporting parson that I know well lives 
 in a house just above the end of an ancient high- 
 pitched stone bridge that spans a famous salmon 
 pool. One evening only two or three years ago, 
 about midnight, he heard a tap on his study 
 window, and a parishioner whispered to him that he 
 thought the house was being watched by burglars 
 as he had for a long time seen two men skulking 
 under the shelter of a wall at the foot of the parson's 
 garden. The parson went out with him and found 
 that the men were gone, but saw a light on the 
 water under one of the arches of the bridge. 
 After a little time the light moved to the other side 
 of the river and the parson went across the bridge 
 to reconnoitre. On the way over whom should he 
 meet but the river watcher employed by the 
 Salmon Conservancy Board in company with the 
 village policeman, and carrying with them a fine 
 spring salmon. A very few days afterwards these 
 two worthies found that a change of air was needed 
 for the benefit of their health. This little incident 
 is a trifle disquieting, but I believe that on the 
 whole the police and the river watchers are men 
 who do their duty often far away from all help and 
 when the general feeling of the dwellers by the 
 moorland streams is pretty strongly on the side 
 of the poachers. Then it is due to the efforts of
 
 SEAGULLS 143 
 
 the police and the watchers alone that the salmon 
 have any chance of spawning in safety. 
 
 But there is one form of poacher, and in my 
 opinion about the worst of all, which no watcher 
 deters and no law restrains, but which, on the 
 contrary, is protected and encouraged by the law, 
 I mean the seagull of every species. Ever since 
 the Wild Birds Protection Acts have been ex- 
 tended to include them, the seagulls have increased 
 by leaps and bounds. As late as 1889 your great- 
 grandfather could write that on the Tees seagulls 
 seldom came far inland. Now, on all the rivers 
 of the east coast flocks of forty, fifty, or a hundred 
 gulls are the commonest of sights at the time 
 when the young parr or brandlings and the smolts 
 are crowded in the shallows. Such a flock will 
 hover over the shallows ; the frightened little 
 fishes dash hither and thither, quick enough 
 perhaps to escape from one foe, but falling an 
 easy prey to the multitude of their enemies. The 
 lesser black-backed gull generally breeds on inland 
 waters, and they, like the rest, have increased 
 enormously in numbers. Every Londoner knows 
 how they have increased upon the Thames and in 
 the parks of late years. Uncounted thousands of 
 these gulls are to be found nesting on the shores 
 of the lakes and tarns near the upper waters of 
 our salmon rivers, and thence they fly in great 
 flocks and resort to the streams for food. Many 
 times, when fishing in spring and early summer, I 
 have seen a flock of these gulls pitch upon the
 
 144 SOME MORE POACHERS 
 
 shallows among a shoal of parr or of smolts, and 
 have seen the little fish caught and eaten literally 
 by hundreds, and I think it almost impossible 
 to exaggerate the damage done by the operation 
 of this foolish and misdirected law. Under its 
 ' Orders ' rare and beautiful birds were constantly, 
 until very recent days, unprotected, yet the most 
 mischievous and destructive of our commoner 
 birds, and in particular the gulls, have, under 
 its protection, increased ten-thousandfold.
 
 XV 
 
 THE LAST DAY OF A SEASON 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, The last day of any season 
 that is to say, the last that one can spend at the 
 river is always a day full of great hopes, and, of 
 course, they are generally unfulfilled. But for 
 various reasons the last day that I could give to 
 the river in 1908 was a day without much hope for 
 an angler, but yet it proved a good day, marked 
 with a white stone, by reason of a lucky chance. 
 For the river was very low indeed, and the weather 
 hot, still, and misty. There were fish in plenty 
 in the pools, but on the Tuesday I had had but one 
 rise, and that on a trout fly, from a fish which was 
 weighed out nearly an hour later at 19 Ibs. On the 
 Wednesday also I had one rise only and again on the 
 trout rod and some trout flies, which I had taken 
 to in despair of moving a fish with the salmon rod. 
 At the very tail of a long stream a big fish 
 rose and quietly sucked in the dropper, a tiny 
 black fly with a bright orange hackle. I suppose 
 that the gut was ' necked/ or else I held him too 
 hard, for I felt the hold break and he was gone. 
 No, he has taken it again no doubt, really, it has 
 by some chance taken him. He flings himself 
 out, and then madly bolts down the stream, turns 
 
 K
 
 146 THE LAST DAY OF A SEASON 
 
 up again and rushes past under the very point of 
 the rod, the line swishing in the water, and the 
 frail little rod quite helpless to check him in any- 
 thing that he may choose to do. He chooses to 
 bolt to the gravel bed behind me, then, finding 
 himself upon the stones with his back out of water, 
 he splashes round and starts for the opposite side. 
 There is sixty yards of line on the reel and the trout 
 gut is new and strong, but as he nears the other 
 bank the reel has only fifteen, ten, five yards left, 
 and now I can give him only a few turns. I try 
 all the rod will bear to stop him, but he goes 
 straight in among the lower branches of the 
 willows growing on the opposite bank, and there 
 he flounces about for a moment or two, and then 
 the line comes back with both flies gone. I 
 think that the fish must have had the gut cast 
 across his jaws when the dropper broke off, and 
 then the tail fly being pulled up towards his mouth 
 must have caught in his eye or in some very tender 
 spot. The way in which he rushed ashore first 
 on one side of the water and then on the other 
 seemed to show that he was blinded with pain or 
 fright, and he was a good fish, too, of 16 or 17 Ibs. 
 
 Well, a solitary and rather fluky rise on each of 
 the two preceding days did not give much hope of 
 success on the Thursday, especially as I had to 
 leave the water at two o'clock to catch my train 
 southwards. 
 
 I got all my packing done early and began to fish 
 at ten o'clock in a swift run at the head of a long
 
 A FLUKE 147 
 
 pool where I knew that a number of good fish were 
 lying. About the tenth cast a large fish jumped 
 just as the line was stretched out to fall upon the 
 water, and I saw that the fish fell right across the 
 line about twelve feet from the fly. At once I 
 struck, as I have done dozens of times before when 
 a fish has jumped or risen over the line. This time 
 my luck was in, for I felt the drag on the line, and 
 the fly, a half-inch-long green heckam-peckam, 
 struck firmly in something that I felt sure must be 
 the ' tummy ' of that fish. Instantly he set all 
 doubts at rest by flinging himself out, with a 
 violent wriggle in the air, then falling back and 
 bolting up and down and to and fro in the very 
 swiftest and shallowest part of the stream, so 
 that three or four times I thought that he had 
 broken away, and that the loose line coming back 
 to me had neither fish nor fly at the end of it. 
 Then he decided to splash his way up the rocky 
 rapids to the next pool, and no sooner had he got 
 to it than round he came to my side of the stream 
 and dropped down the edge with his back fin out 
 of water, until, catching sight of Tom Falshaw on 
 the bank waiting with the long gaff, he turned out 
 into deeper water and bolted back to the place 
 where he was hooked. There he stayed for a few 
 minutes, slowly boring his way up the strong 
 water, and then swinging back again with a dash, 
 only to bore up again. Presently he seemed to 
 decide that streams were doing him no good, and 
 he dropped quickly down the pool to fight out the
 
 148 
 
 rest of this battle in quiet water. And a long, 
 stubborn fight it is, in which he tries to rid himself 
 of this accursed thorn in the flesh. Not a minute 
 of it do I grudge on such a hopeless-looking day as 
 this, and it is a full forty-five minutes before he is 
 gaffed, a quarter of a mile lower down the river. 
 He is a little red for is it not October the 8th ? 
 but a thick and handsome fish, and he weighs 
 19 J Ibs. The little fly is hooked into his left 
 ventral fin. It has split the fin down for half an 
 inch or more, but seems then to have got a firm 
 hold. 1 
 
 Back we go to fish the pool very carefully, but 
 without a touch. Then again, with a gay salmon 
 fly a full inch in length, and then we try a dull 
 brown little fly with a dun turkey wing in a long 
 stream above. Half-way down the pool a small 
 fish of 7 Ibs. takes it, and is safely landed after 
 a brief splashing struggle. Then we fish the pool 
 again from the top to the bottom without a rise. 
 A good fish and a grilse have been throwing 
 themselves out again and again in the quickest 
 
 1 This was a lucky fluke, and I have told you of a still greater fluke 
 in my letter on spring fishing (at page 71), but I once witnessed 
 the capture of a salmon in a way even more astonishing. In the 
 summer of 1896 I was fishing a pool down after another angler Mr. 
 Charles Liddell, of Warwick Hall, Cumberland who was casting 
 from the other side and wading far out in the stream. We both 
 stopped fishing about the same moment and I began to walk up the 
 bank, when I heard a shout and saw him picking up a fine grilse of 
 6 or 7 Ibs. As he waded out of the stream the fish had risen in 
 shallow water, and on his coming to the place it had rushed ashore. 
 It was deeply marked by the meshes of a net through which it had 
 obviously forced its way only a few days before.
 
 MORE LUCK 149 
 
 rush at the throat of the pool. We will try them 
 once more before we go, for two o'clock is now close 
 at hand. Sure enough in the shallow, tumbling 
 water one of them takes. Luckily it is the big one, 
 and he puts up a great fight, rushing madly to 
 every part of the pool, once even fouling the line 
 round a rock close to the far bank. Fortunately 
 this stone is mossy and the line runs freely round 
 it, and presently the fish struggles on the surface, 
 the line gives a flick and a twang, and we see it 
 come free from the stone, bringing away with it a 
 little tuft of moss, which for several minutes 
 dangles in the air. After this he soon tires and 
 in a few minutes is on the gravel dead beat with 
 his wild struggle ; it is not more than six or seven 
 minutes from the hooking, I feel certain, yet he 
 is a beautiful bright cock fish and weighs 16 Ibs. 
 
 There remains only time for a few hasty casts in 
 the best places as I go up the river to meet the 
 dogcart, and in an hour or two and at this very 
 moment at which I write I am flying southward 
 with three good fish packed in cool ferns and 
 bracken lying in the guard's van. 
 
 K 2
 
 XVI 
 
 MY BEST FISH 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, My best fish so far, may I say 
 without touching wood was no great monster. 
 Four-and-twenty pounds it was for a long time, 
 and then for some years a fish of 28 Ibs. held the 
 field. In 1904 it became 32 Ibs., and now this 
 last week ' as ever was ' his place has been taken 
 by a fish of 34 Ibs. But he is nothing to feel very 
 proud of, because he was taken on the minnow, 
 with a trace of steel wire, and so his last gallant 
 battle was but brief and brutal. 
 
 The twenty-four pounder was the best sports- 
 man of the lot. He was a beautiful spring fish, 
 his back blue-grey and his sides of burnished silver, 
 and with that peach-coloured or rose-pink irides- 
 cence over the glistening under sides that you 
 never see upon a late autumn fish. Yet he was 
 taken on the 28th of October. A big flood had 
 lasted for a week, and the river had begun to run 
 clear, though it was still very high. On the 27th 
 I had touched a fish on the fly, but had done 
 nothing else. It was a perfect day for a minnow, 
 but I used no minnow in those days. I began on 
 the 28th at the same spot, and immediately got a 
 
 150
 
 AN OCTOBER SPRING FISH 151 
 
 heavy pull from this fish, but the hook got no 
 hold, and he could not be induced to come again. 
 All day I fished blank, and about five o'clock I 
 returned to give my friend another trial. When I 
 reached him I felt the faintest draw on the line, 
 yet it was a quite slow draw such as only a good 
 fish can give. I made the same cast again, and 
 this time with a snatch he made sure of his fly. 
 The current ran strong, and the very butt seemed 
 to creak as the top of the rod was dragged down 
 to the water. Like so many strong fish that are 
 well hooked, he didn't show himself at first, but 
 kept deep down in the water, and after a few 
 moments of heavy ' jagging ' he began steadily to 
 bore his way up the stream. In five-and-twenty 
 minutes he showed himself but once, and then it 
 was only one sudden leaping somersault about ten 
 minutes after he had been hooked. At last his 
 strength began to fail and I tried to strand him 
 on the gravel bed, but every time that he touched 
 the stones he turned and splashed out into deep 
 water, and stubbornly refused to be coaxed to 
 shore again. The rod was a most powerful steel- 
 centred cane rod, and I knew that the tackle was 
 strong, so I did not spare him in the least, and I can 
 remember to this day how my left arm ached with 
 the cramped strain of holding the rod so hard 
 against him. However, at last, after five-and- 
 thirty minutes of the severest treatment that I 
 ever remember, he was safely stranded and lifted 
 out by the tail. I had, of course, seen for some
 
 152 MY BEST FISH 
 
 time that his whole colouring was very unusual, 
 and each time that he had stranded upon the 
 shallows I had noticed that his wet back showed 
 as a sort of warm yellowish grey like the wet back 
 of a great trout, and entirely unlike the colour of 
 the autumn fish, which, even at their brightest, 
 show a dark and rather dull-looking back as they 
 are drawn on to the shallows. But until I saw 
 this fish out of the water I had never thought of 
 the chance of taking a clean spring fish at that time 
 of year, and I could hardly believe my eyes when 
 I saw him shining before me with that unmistak- 
 able rosy pink bloom, and his fins and tail standing 
 out in contrast almost as black as ink. Well, he 
 was a cock fish, and, as I have told you, he weighed 
 24 Ibs. He had taken a fly that I had made the 
 night before a silver body with a pale blue hackle 
 and a plain dark mallard wing and he was sent 
 off to a very young lady who is now your mother ; 
 and I believe that she thought then that I caught 
 fish just like that every day. 
 
 For a good many years 24 Ibs. was my best. 
 I caught fish of 22 Ibs. and 23 Ibs. often, I caught 
 even several of 24 Ibs., but I could go no higher. 
 At length in the course of one season I rose first to 
 25j, then to 26J, and then to 28 Ibs. The twenty- 
 five pounder I caught as a small flood was rising. 
 A week later, when it had fallen again, and the 
 water had become dead low, so low that for days 
 we had caught no salmon, I was fishing one 
 evening with a very light double-handed sea-trout
 
 A TROUT FLY 153 
 
 rod, a trout cast, and a small green heckam- 
 peckam fly, about the size of a large March brown, 
 when I saw the flicker of a big tail in the shallow 
 rushing water right at the throat of a pool. I got 
 into the river well above the place and fished down 
 to it almost inch by inch, for I knew that the fish 
 must be lying just where the water deepened, and 
 that the fly would almost touch his nose. What- 
 ever it did he took it. There is little to be said 
 about the next hour and five minutes. There 
 never or very rarely is hard or quick fighting 
 with a heavy salmon on a light rod in a big pool 
 where the fish has plenty of sea-room. I was as 
 gentle as possible, merely doing my best whenever 
 he grew quiet to urge him to keep up his struggles. 
 At the end of that time I floated him, dead beat 
 and lying on his side, on to a sand-bank a quarter 
 of a mile below the place where he was hooked, 
 and there lifted him out. He was a cock fish and 
 weighed 26J Ibs., and the hook of the little green 
 fly had opened out a good deal, but I keep it as 
 a pattern ; many salmon have since died upon 
 copies of it. The twenty-eight pounder was 
 caught in September and upon the rising water 
 of a flood. He had been fished for in vain for 
 many days, but had been hooked and lost that 
 same morning. Fortune must have been smiling 
 that day, for the line was badly ' knuckled ' above 
 the cast, and though it was strained almost to 
 breaking-point in turning the fish away from some 
 logs, yet it held then, although it snapped like
 
 154 MY BE ST FISH 
 
 rotten thread when tested as you must always 
 do after the big fish was landed. 
 
 It was several years before I got to 30 Ibs. 
 Then one day in a heavy, muddy flood, on a river 
 on which we were guests, two of us had been fishing 
 with fly and minnow all day on the only pool 
 quiet enough to offer us any chance of a fish. 
 At five o'clock we decided to give it one last turn 
 with the phantom, and in that turn my big fish 
 boiled up at the minnow on the shallow tail of 
 the pool. He missed the minnow, but turned and 
 rushed after it along the top of the water and seized 
 it a few yards farther on. I was wading waist- 
 deep, and as soon as I had got back on to the 
 shallows the fish flung himself out of the water. 
 None of your wild somersaults, but a stately dive, 
 head first out and in again, like that which one sees 
 done by each one of a school of porpoises as they 
 dive into the air out of the side of a wave and pop 
 in again in the trough. I saw, and said on the 
 spot, that he must weigh 30 Ibs., and, as you may 
 suppose, I was very careful with him. But care 
 does not mean easing the strain and playing gently ; 
 it means watching every move of the fish to be sure 
 that if he gives a sudden dash or leap the rod and 
 reel are ready to respond to it. Well, he made a 
 fine fight ; twice more he leaped clean out and 
 repeatedly dropped down to the edge of the rapids 
 and there lashed about on the surface. In one 
 long run up the farther side of the river he caught 
 the line upon a great round boulder, and it seemed
 
 32-34-40 LBS. 155 
 
 as if he must break it, but after a few moments of 
 horrible grating I felt a twang, and the line was 
 released from the boulder and sprang into the air 
 again taut upon the fish, some ten yards higher up 
 the stream, but carrying fast upon it a lump of 
 moss about the size of a cricket ball torn from the 
 side of the boulder. The last effort of the fish 
 was to bolt down the rapids into the pool below, 
 where, after a stubborn fight, he was brought to 
 the gravel and taken out, thirty-five minutes after 
 he was hooked. Thirty-two pounds he weighed, 
 and proud as Punch I was of him in those days, 
 making an outline model of his tubby figure in 
 strong drawing-paper and touching it up with 
 ink, to fill in the eyes, fins, and other details, and 
 the spots and shading of the back. 
 
 This remained the best fish until September 
 1908, when on the i8th I took six fish weighing 
 as they came 15, 5, 15, 14, 18 and 34 Ibs. The 
 big one was caught upon a minnow in a quiet, 
 slow-running pool where I had never dreamed of 
 taking a very big fish. 
 
 But that pool must have been well suited for 
 big fish, for seven days later and since I wrote 
 what you have just been reading I was lucky 
 enough to hook there and land a fish of 40 J Ibs., 
 my heaviest salmon up to the present, and one that 
 I am not very likely to beat. During the morning 
 three fish had touched my fly, two, weighing 14 
 and 1 6 Ibs., had been landed and the other lost ; 
 but after midday not a rise could be got, so as a
 
 156 MY BEST FISH 
 
 last chance before going home I went to try this 
 pool. Whilst I took one turn over it with the 
 fly I got Tom to put up the spinning rod, and 
 then I mounted a small phantom minnow and at 
 the second cast hooked the big fish. He fought 
 and walloped and plunged on the surface for a long 
 time, taking a great deal out of himself and also 
 showing me that I had a very big fish to deal with. 
 It was growing dark and the bank was fringed with 
 willows, but luckily the fish kept to the open 
 water and put up a very active plunging fight, so 
 that in about fifteen minutes I was able, at a gap 
 in the willows, to bring him near enough to use the 
 gaff. Up to then I believed that he was a big fish, 
 about 30 Ibs. perhaps, but until, as I dragged him 
 ashore, I saw his great length and his thick back, 
 I had no idea that I was in for the long-coveted 
 forty-pounder. But when I saw him come out 
 of the water I hoped for even more than 40 Ibs., 
 and I am certain that if he had not been bitten, as 
 he was, he must have weighed from 45 to 50 Ibs. 
 For he measured just over forty-eight inches 
 from the snout to the centre of the tail, and these 
 big fish usually weigh about a pound to the inch, or 
 if in really fine condition, a little more than a pound 
 to the inch. But my victim had lately received a 
 frightful double wound from the teeth of some 
 predatory beast some seal or porpoise most pro- 
 bably and although he showed no sign of autumn 
 redness, in spite of a large ' gib ' and a hooked 
 jaw, yet he was not as deep as he ought to have
 
 A FORTY-POUNDER
 
 4O LBS. 157 
 
 been, and he must have lost many pounds in 
 condition from this injury. 
 
 His would-be captor had quite obviously seized 
 his salmon from underneath, for there were two 
 great gashes on each side of his belly, and the 
 scrapes of his captor's teeth backwards and down- 
 wards to the anal fin were quite plainly to be seen. 
 What a meal he would have made for almost 
 anything ! 
 
 Well, we photographed him the next morning 
 before going to fish, and his portrait (beside a little 
 boy of six years that I think you know) is here at 
 page 156. The wound on the side is not very 
 clearly shown, but the scrape of the teeth from 
 that wound just in front of the ventral fins, in a 
 sort of half-moon, back to the torn anal fin, can be 
 traced pretty plainly.
 
 XVII 
 
 WHEN AND WHERE TO EXPECT SALMON 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, Cold winds and wretched weather, 
 which send the trout fisher home empty-handed, 
 seem often to make little or no difference to the 
 salmon. The wind and the weather do affect 
 success in salmon fishing, but it is in a very uncer- 
 tain and capricious manner. No day and no 
 weather is hopeless if there are salmon in the pools, 
 but a fresh and even a strong wind is usually a 
 good thing for the salmon fisher. Even bitter 
 north and east winds do not prevent the fish from 
 taking the fly, though they can make the fisher 
 pretty miserable, and especially if on his water 
 they happen to be foul winds, that is to say, winds 
 blowing up-stream or in his face. But salmon seem 
 to dislike haze and gloom, and they seldom take 
 well either in hot and hazy weather or in dull gloom. 
 But if the air is clear and without mist the day 
 may be as hot or as cold, as sunny or as dark as 
 you will, and still you may have a very fine day's 
 salmon fishing. 
 
 In big, dark waters a bright sun is a positive 
 advantage, as the fish seem to see the fly better in 
 sunlight, or at any rate they take it much better. 
 But in low, clear water most fishers prefer to have 
 
 158
 
 TWILIGHT 159 
 
 no sunshine, although if the day is fresh and the 
 horizon clear and bright, a sunny day often proves 
 a very good day and especially in the spring. 
 After a hot, glaring day in August or September 
 the hour of sunset and twilight is never without 
 hope and may prove most deadly. Many and 
 many a time I have known two, three, and four 
 fish to be taken in this hour by a rod that had 
 moved nothing all day. But too often the fisher 
 has gone home to dinner at the very time when he 
 should be fishing hardest. The best chance lasts 
 but a short time and comes after sunset, when the 
 light has failed so much that the surface of the 
 water seems to reflect it all, and you seem to be 
 casting into a river of liquid metal. On such 
 hopeless days you should keep one of your likeliest 
 spots for the last few casts in the failing light, and 
 should be careful to disturb the fish there as little 
 as possible during the afternoon. 
 
 Rain is by no means against success in salmon 
 fishing, rather the contrary, and fish often take 
 well in slashing storms of rain. But in very late 
 autumn, when fish are anxious to press on and 
 ascend the river, rain and even showery weather 
 seems to suggest floods, and the fish often be- 
 come unsettled and take very badly in what 
 seems to be almost perfect water. And often at 
 other times when they appear to be expecting a 
 flood, salmon take very badly, although the 
 moment that the water begins to rise they may 
 take savagely. On a quick, sudden rise of water
 
 160 WHEN AND WHERE TO EXPECT SALMON 
 
 it is well known that fish will take, but it is often 
 said that they will not take in water that is rising 
 slowly and steadily. This may be true in some 
 rivers, but is not so in all, for I have a good many 
 times known fish take very well in such water. 
 Even in snowstorms and thunderstorms, an'd just 
 before thunderstorms, I have known them to rise 
 well, although far more often they refuse to rise 
 at all. 
 
 Probably for the actual taking of salmon, apart 
 from the joy and pleasure of fishing, the best day 
 upon the whole, in spring or summer or early 
 autumn fishing, is such a day as is described in the 
 old ballad : 
 
 ' The wind doth blow to-day, my love, 
 And a few small drops of rain ' ; 
 
 and the very worst days are at all times of the 
 year warm, muggy days, when the air feels close 
 and heavy and the river is covered with floating 
 foam and bubbles. This foam is a very odd thing. 
 On some days every stream and pool may be 
 covered with flecks and lumps of foam, and every 
 backwater and every eddy by the streams is 
 covered with a blanket of hissing bubbles. Such 
 days are more common in autumn than in spring 
 and are always close and muggy days, and the 
 almost soap-sud foam seems to be due to some 
 peculiar state of air and water which delays the 
 bursting of the bubbles formed in the splashing 
 streams. If the day freshens the foam may dis- 
 appear in a few minutes, but whilst this foam is on
 
 FOAM 161 
 
 the water I have always, or almost always, found 
 the fish take very badly indeed on only one day 
 in twenty years can I remember to have done well 
 in such foam. On that day the salmon suddenly 
 began to take, and between three and four o'clock 
 I got four fish, but the whole day before and after 
 it was a total blank without a rise. 
 
 This last season, 1909, was an example. For 
 days together, when the water was hi fine order, 
 the foam floated everywhere and hardly a fish was 
 taken. Why it should be so I cannot say. It 
 may be that the endless flecks of foam floating 
 over the fish tire his eye or distract his attention 
 from the fly. However, on such days the best 
 thing to do is to try the tails of long, quiet pools 
 where the froth has had time to disappear. There 
 you may get a rise. 
 
 Night fishing. Salmon take very well, just as 
 trout do, when it is dark or almost dark so dark 
 that you cannot see the fly or the line but I 
 have seldom found them ready to take on a cold, 
 raw night. On a warm, mild night they will take 
 quite a small fly in the smooth, quiet streams and 
 in glassy runs. In late evening fishing, too, smooth 
 and swift-running water is the best to fish, and any 
 small fly with a pair of large, bright jungle cock's 
 feathers in the wings will kill the very biggest fish 
 which earlier in the day were lying in the deep 
 water. But in the heavy streams and in big 
 waters at dusk, or when it has grown quite dark, 
 you may use your very largest fly, and may take 
 
 L
 
 164 WHEN AND WHERE TO EXPECT SALMON 
 
 of course, is only a rough rule of thumb. One 
 bit of shallow water in a deep pool may make 
 that pool a fine high-water pool, and there may be 
 nothing to tell you where that shallow is. 
 
 In high water after a flood. The quiet ' dubs ' 
 at the tails of long pools, and the thin, glassy water 
 where the tail of any pool sucks down to a rapid 
 below, are usually the most likely places. Also any 
 narrower waist or stronger running place in pools 
 which are, at ordinary level, long, still pools. These 
 places are very deadly in early spring or late 
 autumn, and you may find them by watching the 
 surface of the river when a flood is rising or falling, 
 and seeing where the stream runs strongest and 
 boils most. 
 
 Occasionally in special places, and when fish are 
 running, the shallow water at the edge of the strong 
 streams rushing into the head of big pools holds 
 good taking fish in high water. 
 
 In big waters on a rapid rise from normal. 
 Fish just where fish were lying before the rise 
 came, but close in to the shallows. Also beside 
 the runs at the head of the stream. 
 
 In dead low waters. Try the very neck of the 
 stream just where the water running into the pool 
 becomes deep enough to hold a salmon two or 
 three feet deep and fish down the rush so long 
 as it is strong enough to swirl the fly about. 
 Also try the strongest swirls of pot holes and 
 broken water. 
 
 In the evening. In low water, with fine tackle
 
 BRIGHT SUN 165 
 
 fish at the very tails of long dubs where the water 
 slips over into the next pool. 
 
 At the tail of a deep swirling pool wherever the 
 water shallows and begins to run out fan-wise. 
 
 On the shallowing water below any deep pool. 
 
 In the evening, in large or high waters, fish the 
 big dubs and in strong streams running smoothly, 
 rather than in water that is broken and rough. 
 
 In bright sun. Fish the streams and in the very 
 quickest part of the streams with bright and 
 especially with glittering silver or gold-bodied flies. 
 And in sunny weather remember, too, that you 
 may take all the glitter off your gut by rubbing it 
 with the rolled-up leaf of an alder. 
 
 In wild, rough, windy weather in low water. 
 Fish anywhere, but especially on the quieter flats 
 where lately there has not been current enough 
 to kill fish. Use a small, bright fly or a large, 
 dark claret or black fly. 
 
 On a rise in the water. Go at once to fish all 
 the places where lately it was too low to fish. 
 
 L2
 
 164 WHEN AND WHERE TO EXPECT SALMON 
 
 of course, is only a rough rule of thumb. One 
 bit of shallow water in a deep pool may make 
 that pool a fine high-water pool, and there may be 
 nothing to tell you where that shallow is. 
 
 In high water after a flood. The quiet ' dubs ' 
 at the tails of long pools, and the thin, glassy water 
 where the tail of any pool sucks down to a rapid 
 below, are usually the most likely places. Also any 
 narrower waist or stronger running place in pools 
 which are, at ordinary level, long, still pools. These 
 places are very deadly in early spring or late 
 autumn, and you may find them by watching the 
 surface of the river when a flood is rising or falling, 
 and seeing where the stream runs strongest and 
 boils most. 
 
 Occasionally in special places, and when fish are 
 running, the shallow water at the edge of the strong 
 streams rushing into the head of big pools holds 
 good taking fish in high water. 
 
 In big waters on a rapid, rise from normal. 
 Fish just where fish were lying before the rise 
 came, but close in to the shallows. Also beside 
 the runs at the head of the stream. 
 
 In dead low waters. Try the very neck of the 
 stream just where the water running into the pool 
 becomes deep enough to hold a salmon two or 
 three feet deep and fish down the rush so long 
 as it is strong enough to swirl the fly about. 
 Also try the strongest swirls of pot holes and 
 broken water. 
 
 In the evening. In low water, with fine tackle
 
 BRIGHT SUN 165 
 
 fish at the very tails of long dubs where the water 
 slips over into the next pool. 
 
 At the tail of a deep swirling pool wherever the 
 water shallows and begins to run out fan-wise. 
 
 On the shallowing water below any deep pool. 
 
 In the evening, in large or high waters, fish the 
 big dubs and in strong streams running smoothly, 
 rather than in water that is broken and rough. 
 
 In bright sun. Fish the streams and in the very 
 quickest part of the streams with bright and 
 especially with glittering silver or gold-bodied flies. 
 And in sunny weather remember, too, that you 
 may take all the glitter off your gut by rubbing it 
 with the rolled-up leaf of an alder. 
 
 In wild, rough, windy weather in low water. 
 Fish anywhere, but especially on the quieter flats 
 where lately there has not been current enough 
 to kill fish. Use a small, bright fly or a large, 
 dark claret or black fly. 
 
 On a rise in the water. Go at once to fish all 
 the places where lately it was too low to fish. 
 
 L2
 
 XVIII 
 
 HINTS ON FLY TYING 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, It is of no use trying to tell you 
 within the compass of any reasonable letter how 
 to tie a salmon fly. You must have some one to 
 show you how to do that, for all mere descriptions 
 that I have ever seen are intensely tedious and 
 boring, because the writer has to be minute in 
 every detail if he is unable to assume that his 
 reader knows such simple things as the usual 
 position of the hands in tying a fly, how to hold 
 the hook, how to set about tying on a wing, or a 
 hackle if he cannot assume that you know these 
 things, which one practical lesson would show you 
 through the eye in a few moments. But even so 
 there are books which explain everything to the 
 uttermost detail. Mr. Kelson's great book on the 
 Salmon Fly is one of them, and there is a useful 
 little booklet by Captain Hale, which is well worth 
 having by you, and no doubt there are others. 
 All that I intend to do is to give you some ' tips ' 
 which I have found useful, tips that you will not 
 find, so far as I know, in any of those books. 
 
 First to take them more or less in the order in 
 which you would tie a fly for tying on the loop 
 to the hook I always use, unless the hook is under 
 
 166
 
 FIDDLE-STRING LOOPS 167 
 
 an inch long, stout saddlers' twist. It is a yellow 
 silk thread (Pearsall's No. 14), immensely strong, 
 and you can use any amount of force in the wind- 
 ing without risk of a break, whilst its thickness 
 causes it to cover the hook in much fewer turns 
 than does the fine silk ordinarity used. 
 
 Next, for the loops themselves, I always use 
 fiddle-string the thinnest E string of the violin, 
 and, for the very small flies, banjo strings, which 
 are thinner still. The great merit of these loops 
 is that they soften instantly on being wetted, 
 and you do not and cannot crack off the fly at the 
 loop even in the highest wind. Of course it is 
 possible to crack off the single gut above the fly, 
 but even that feat of folly is rendered difficult, 
 even for a beginner, by having the fly joined to the 
 gut with a loop which is perfectly soft and flexible. 
 
 Next, having tied the loop to the hook, varnish 
 the lapping well with celluloid varnish. That is 
 merely celluloid dissolved in acetone or amyl 
 acetate, two perfectly harmless and inexpensive 
 drugs to be had of any good chemist. Celluloid 
 is to be found nowadays in almost every country- 
 house in the form of photographic films. You 
 have only to soak some old films, used or unused, 
 in hot water and then strip off the sensitised 
 gelatine, and then the harder film may be cut up 
 into strips and dissolved in your acetone or amyl 
 acetate. A ready-made solution of celluloid in 
 amyl acetate the drug which smells so strongly 
 of pear drops is sold, under the name of Zapon,
 
 168 HINTS ON FLY TYING 
 
 as a varnish or lacquer to keep silver and bright 
 metal ornaments from tarnishing in the fogs of 
 London. It costs about a shilling a bottle and can 
 be got at the Stores, and no doubt elsewhere. It 
 is rather too thin a solution for fly tying, but that 
 can very easily be cured either by adding a little 
 photographic film to the solution, or by leaving the 
 cork out and allowing a little of the liquid to 
 evaporate. 
 
 This celluloid varnish penetrates into anything, 
 dries quickly, and never becomes hard or brittle as 
 most other varnishes do in cold weather. It is 
 immensely better for making flies, and every sort 
 of fishing-tackle, than any other thing that I have 
 ever come across in the way of varnishes. One's 
 flies now last three or four times as long as they used 
 to do, and, better still, one can wing one's flies 
 without using cobbler's wax upon the silk, an 
 advantage which I will explain presently. 
 
 Now, having got your hook with the loop tied 
 securely to it, you want to dress a fly upon it. 
 First fasten your tying silk to the hook, and be 
 careful to begin the fly far enough back. The 
 first lapping of the silk should be made exactly 
 opposite the point of the barb of a hook of the 
 ordinary Limerick shape. Apart from mere want 
 of skill, three simple faults cause the beginner's 
 flies to look so unattractive to the experienced 
 fisher. They are, first, that the bodies are usually 
 not begun nearly far enough back on the hook ; 
 secondly, that the bodies are carried too far for-
 
 CELLULOID VARNISH 169 
 
 ward, leaving too little space free to tie the hackle 
 and wing ; and, thirdly, that the beginner almost 
 always makes the wings of his flies too long. The 
 wings should not extend much, if at all, beyond 
 the bend of the hook if the fly is to look a work- 
 manlike and killing fly. And almost one-third of 
 the shank of the hook next the loop should be left 
 quite free of any body dressing, in order to give 
 room for the hackle, or throat, and the wings and 
 head. Both wings and hackle are then more 
 easily and more firmly tied, and your fly will look 
 better and will last better. 
 
 Well, to begin again, fasten your tying silk 
 opposite to the barb point and at once tie on the 
 end of your tinsel. The only tinsel worth using 
 is that which is made up of a threadlike silver or 
 gold wire wrapped round and round on a floss silk 
 foundation. This tinsel cannot be broken by the 
 teeth of a fish. If you fray out the end of this 
 tinsel, by pulling off a few turns of the wire that 
 enwraps it, and then tie the now fluffy end to your 
 hook with a few turns of silk, and after that touch 
 the fastening with a dab of celluloid varnish, the 
 ends can be fastened so rigidly that the tinsel will 
 never, or hardly ever, be torn loose, and will be a 
 great support to the body of the fly. In spring 
 more especially, when the salmon kelts and the 
 bull-trout and sea-trout kelts, chew your best flies 
 to pieces, you will find the benefit of tying and 
 varnishing your tinsel, and indeed every part of 
 your fly, in the best possible manner.
 
 i;o HINTS ON FLY TYING 
 
 A good many things have to be tied on at the 
 tail of a salmon fly, and it is not easy to keep this 
 part neat. I begin a fly thus : I take a turn of 
 waxed silk round the hook opposite the barb point, 
 then lay on the end of the tinsel and take two or 
 three turns and a half-hitch, then give a dab of 
 varnish, then tie on the tail if I mean to have one, 
 but I now rarely do so with three turns of silk ; 
 then, if the fly is to have a silver or gold body, begin 
 straightway to wind on the body, turning the hook 
 against the tinsel. When I say turning the hook 
 against the tinsel, I mean that you hold with your 
 right hand the shank of the hook, with the ribbon 
 of tinsel projecting at right angles to it. Then 
 holding the hook by the bend with your left hand 
 you turn or roll the hook round and round, thus 
 winding on the tinsel with a smoothness and 
 regularity that is very difficult to attain by any 
 other method. 
 
 But if your fly is not to have a tinsel body you 
 must, after tying on the tail, tie on the strand of 
 floss silk or of wool or of mohair that you mean to 
 use for the body. I think that fish, when they take 
 a fly, expect a juicy morsel. It is not the wings 
 that they want to eat, and so I believe in having a 
 fairly thick body ; but as it approaches the for- 
 ward end don't forget to leave, as I have said, a 
 fourth to a third of the shank quite bare for the 
 hackle and the wings, and, moreover, taper off 
 your body somewhat at the shoulder end as well 
 as at the tail.
 
 MAKE FLIES STRONGLY 171 
 
 When you have wound on your body of wool 
 and tied down the end of it, then wind on your 
 tinsel and fasten it securely and it is better to 
 wind it the opposite way round. When done, take 
 a turn or two round it with the silk, then snip off 
 the tinsel with your scissors a quarter of an inch 
 away and expose the silk foundation of this bit by 
 pulling off the wire wrapping from it, and then 
 take a few more turns with your tying silk over 
 that end, give it a dab of celluloid, and you have 
 finished your body. With decent luck it will be 
 indestructible, and you may re-wing that body 
 three or four times, and the more worn it gets the 
 better the fish seem to like it. Never omit that 
 dab of varnish upon the turns of tying silk ; you 
 need not wait for it to dry, it sinks in at once, 
 but it will, as I say, make your fly almost in- 
 destructible. 
 
 Now you will want to tie on a hackle, and here 
 I have a little tip for you to do it neatly and easily. 
 First, of course, you spread the hackle so that 
 every strand stands at right angles to the central 
 line of the feather. This is the old-fashioned plan, 
 and I think it is easier than rolling or doubling 
 over the hackle. But for the beginner it is easier 
 still to strip off one side of the hackle altogether. 
 Then you wet the tip of the hackle to close that 
 up and then tie it to the body. Then hold the 
 hook in your left hand point upwards, take hold 
 of the butt of your hackle with your spring pliers, 
 and carefully make one or two turns of the hackle
 
 i;2 HINTS ON FLY TYING 
 
 round the hook ; then leaving the hackle to hang, 
 kept down by the weight of the pliers, you press 
 back the kind of frill of hackles that you have made, 
 coaxing the side strands upwards so as to get as 
 many strands as possible at the throat of the fly, 
 where you want the hackle to show. You smooth 
 all back with your right forefinger and thumb, and 
 then hold the tips down close to the body with 
 your left hand whilst you take up the pliers that 
 are hanging on the hackle and wind on another 
 frill of two or three turns, press this frill back as 
 before, hold it down to the body in the same way, 
 and so on until you have got enough hackle for 
 your fancy. My fancy is for a very thin hackle ; 
 no fly has more than six legs. 
 
 Although I think that the fly would still in all 
 probability kill as well as it did before, yet it is an 
 annoying thing to find that the hackle has come 
 off a killing fly. So, to prevent this, do not omit 
 a dab of celluloid on the silk fastenings when you 
 begin and when you end off the hackle. 
 
 Now for the wing : 
 
 It is the wing that gives most trouble to the 
 commencing fly tier. On some days the wing will 
 not go right. Do what j^ou can the feathers will 
 roll up and stick out in all directions in the most 
 exasperating way. The silk catches in the strips 
 of feather as the beginner tries to fasten them 
 down, pulling them all to one side and spoiling 
 the whole thing in a moment. Now silk always is 
 a little apt to catch in feather over which it is
 
 WINGING FLIES 173 
 
 being drawn, but the troubles of the beginner 
 are immensely increased by the fact that his silk 
 is usually waxed with cobbler's wax for the very 
 purpose of making it sticky. The penetrating 
 power and strength of celluloid as a varnish now 
 enables you to dispense with the waxing of the 
 silk that you use for tying on the wings. If the 
 beginner will start his wing with two rather narrow 
 strips of some easily tied feather, such as that 
 from the tail or wing of a turkey, will use unwaxed 
 silk and give the fastening a dab of celluloid after 
 each fresh layer of feather is bound on, he will not, 
 I think, find the tying of a simple and workmanlike 
 wing a matter of any particular difficulty. 
 
 The dark-barred mallard feather is one of the 
 most tender as well as one of the most useful of 
 the common feathers, and if your silk is unwaxed 
 you can tie on broad strips of mallard without 
 much risk at a stage when your skill is wholly un- 
 equal to controlling the same feather with waxed 
 silk, when without rhyme or reason the strips go 
 wrong time after time. 
 
 You should remember that feathers gathered 
 when the bird is in fresh plumage are much easier 
 to tie than old, stale feathers that either have come 
 from a bird almost ready to moult again, or that 
 have been kept by you for many years. The sign 
 of a good feather is that it should be springy and 
 soft, not harsh to the touch, and with a clean, 
 even edge, not frayed by months of hard service for 
 its former owner.
 
 174 HINTS ON FLY TYING 
 
 A throat of Gallina (that is, guinea-fowl perle- 
 hone, ' pearl hen/ they call her in Norway) is a 
 good deal easier to tie on than a hackle is because 
 the feathers are not so delicate. Gallina makes a 
 very good hackle, too, and whether tied as a 
 throat or hackle it makes the fly look, at least to 
 my eyes, extremely taking, and it is the best of all 
 imitations of the legs of an insect. In fact, the 
 rough, mottled legs of some water-spiders are 
 remarkably like the single strands of Gallina. 
 
 My whole aim in tying a fly is to get a lively 
 motion in the water and, also, neatness. Nature 
 in all her forms is always incomparably neat, and 
 if you wish your fly to counterfeit a living thing, 
 whatever it may be, your work should at least be 
 neat. And amongst all the suggestions that are 
 made as to what it is that the salmon supposes 
 the fly to be, all are agreed upon one point that 
 he takes it for some living thing, making its way 
 across his pool. 
 
 For myself, I am inclined to think that this is the 
 beginning, the middle, and the end of the matter. 
 The salmon was bred in the river, and for the first 
 two years of his life ate greedily of every living thing 
 that he came across, if it was small enough to fall a 
 victim to his powers flies, creepers, slugs, worms, 
 spiders, minnows, all came alike to him. Then 
 he is impelled to the sea, where he finds fresh 
 myriads of creatures of the most strange forms, 
 yet as he comes across each one he tries it and he 
 finds that it is very good. Just consider how
 
 A SALMON FLY FROM BELOW 175 
 
 strange these things must look to a lusty little 
 smolt, fast growing into a grilse, when he first 
 comes to see a shrimp, a sprat, a sand-eel, a crab, 
 a prawn, a star-fish or a jelly-fish, not to speak 
 of little flounders and all sorts of flat fish scudding 
 along on the sandy bottoms. Don't you think a 
 prawn is quite as odd-looking a beast as any 
 salmon fly can be ? And when the grown salmon 
 after, perhaps, two or three years' absence comes 
 back to the river that he left as a little smolt, does 
 he remember very clearly his tiny flies ? I 
 suspect that he looks for something much bigger 
 than he really finds. If I might guess at the 
 thoughts of the salmon I could fancy him thinking 
 thus: 'Hallo! That's a rummy-looking object 
 that has just fallen on the water over there. I 
 believe it 's alive yes, it must be alive, for I see 
 it swims against the current, and it is crossing the 
 pool, too. I wonder what it can be ! I remember 
 when I was up here as a little fish there used to be 
 some whacking big flies that tasted jolly good 
 great big fellows, and a decent mouthful, not like 
 these miserable little gnats of March browns that I 
 have seen so far, so small that you can't taste them. 
 I wonder if this one is of the old sort that used to 
 be so good. There he comes again, or else another 
 one. He looks pretty fat, I '11 have a go at him. 
 Ugh, Holy Poker ! what a brute ! What a sting 
 he has got ! And how he held on. I '11 leave 
 that sort of fly alone for the future/ 
 
 When people talk of salmon taking the salmon
 
 176 HINTS ON FLY TYING 
 
 fly for a shrimp or a prawn, as many people insist 
 they do, well, it may be so, but it is worth while to 
 remember that big, wary trout often fall victims 
 to the salmon fly, and they have never seen either 
 shrimp or prawn, and they know very well what a 
 trout fly is, and are very hard to catch on an 
 artificial one.
 
 XIX 
 
 KNOTS 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, All knotting of gut involves 
 some risk of cutting or breaking it, and for that 
 reason you are obliged to learn some special knots 
 for use with the thick gut needed in salmon fishing. 
 Even if you do not aspire to make your own casts, 
 or even to mend them for yourself, you would 
 have to know the best knots that are in use for 
 tying the gut cast to your reel line, and for tying 
 the gut itself to the loop of your fly. 
 
 The beginner may do well enough by having a 
 large loop at the end of his gut cast and attaching 
 his fly to it by passing this loop through the eye of 
 the fly and then over the fly itself, and he may 
 have a similar loop at the end of his reel line for 
 fastening that to his gut cast. But loops are 
 clumsy and unreliable. They use up a lot of gut, 
 and they do not get thrown away and renewed 
 nearly as often as they should be renewed or as 
 the gut used for a single knot would be replaced, 
 for on untying one fly and tying on another you 
 naturally tie the new one upon the undamaged 
 gut and throw away the crushed end that was 
 employed for the last knot. And there is sound 
 sense in that practice : the greatest strains that 
 
 M
 
 i;8 KNOTS 
 
 arise in casting always occur at any place where 
 thick and thin stuff joins, and the nearer you get 
 to the end of the whip lash the greater the strain 
 on the material becomes. It is the last inch of the 
 gut cast that runs all the risk of breakage by being 
 cracked like a whip, through unduly hurrying your 
 throw, and the two places where all the strain 
 falls are the junction of the flexible loop at the 
 head of the fly with the rigid shank of the hook 
 and the junction of the single gut cast with this 
 loop of the fly. 
 
 The use of a long loop also on the gut cast 
 strengthens this latter point of weakness by 
 doubling the gut there, but itself also tends to 
 grow weak where the single gut joins the double 
 gut forming the loop. The great risk is that 
 having got a neat and satisfactory loop, either on 
 the line or the cast, you are apt to look upon it as a 
 permanent means of attachment, forgetting that, 
 as I have explained, both the end of the casting 
 line and the end of the gut cast are places where 
 thick stuff joins thin, and places in which the best 
 materials quickly become unreliable and gut 
 especially so. For it is a well-known fact that gut 
 that has become slightly f necked ' and then has 
 got dry will stand a quite heavy pull when you 
 begin to use it again, but after it has been wetted 
 and used for a very short time it will snap upon 
 any trifling jerk. The danger is, as I have said, 
 that having got a loop ready made you are apt to 
 go on using it until it breaks when you strike a fish,
 
 FIGURE OF EIGHT KNOTS 179 
 
 and you lose at once your fly and the whole fruit 
 of your labour. In theory you can watch each 
 loop and can detect its weakness ; in actual 
 practice you will be sure to lose precious fish 
 because the loop has grown weak without your 
 noticing it. 
 
 For attaching to the cast very large and heavy 
 salmon flies, especially those with metal eyes, such 
 a loop on the gut is not unsatisfactory, if you 
 watch it most carefully to see that no part of it 
 has become necked or weakened. But for flies 
 of moderate size or for small flies this loop is a 
 very poor fastening. It is clumsy and conspicu- 
 ous, and by its stiffness it deadens the play of a 
 small fly, and it also involves the risk of breakage 
 that I have just tried to impress upon you. 
 
 Both for tying the line to the cast and for tying 
 the single gut to any fly which has a flexible loop 
 (that is, a loop made either of twisted or single 
 silkworm-gut or made of fiddle-string as described 
 on page 167), a sound and reliable knot is that 
 called the figure of eight knot. 
 
 This knot has two forms. The first and 
 simplest, and the best, is no more than a reef 
 knot made with the gut and the loop on the fly, 
 and then having the spare end of the gut where it 
 comes out of the knot turned once round the gut 
 of the cast and then bent back and thrust into 
 the reef knot again before it is drawn tight, so 
 as to be held fast in the tightened knot. The 
 other form, which looks neater, is in reality a
 
 i8o 
 
 KNOTS 
 
 single hitch of the gut made on the fly-loop with 
 the loose end of the hitch brought round and 
 turned back through the knot in very similar 
 fashion. 
 
 I. The simpler form the reef knot figure of 
 eight is made thus : Enter the point of your gut 
 downwards through the loop of the fly (held with 
 the wings uppermost) and make an ordinary reef 
 knot with gut and loop. The free end is now lying 
 parallel with the last strand of the cast. 
 
 Lift the free end over the gut link, bring it 
 round below the link, and then fold it back on the 
 top of the loop so as to lie as in the illustration 
 below, and pull tight. 
 
 FIG. I. Above Reef Knot. 
 
 Below Knot completed, but loose. 
 
 II. The knot in its other form is made thus : 
 Hold the fly between the left finger and thumb 
 and upside down (i.e. with the hook point above, 
 not below the horizontal body of the fly). Then 
 put the end of your single gut upward through 
 the loop of the fly, bend the gut over away from
 
 FIGURE OF EIGHT KNOTS 
 
 181 
 
 you, bring it round underneath the head and make 
 an ordinary half-hitch, and leave a loose end 
 nearly an inch long. Then turn the fly over (so 
 as to have the hook point below the body), when 
 it will (from above) appear as in figure n. 
 
 Next take the loose end, bring it round below 
 the gut line, then bring it up, bend it back and 
 poke it right down through the fly loop and 
 through your half-hitch, so as to make the com- 
 pleted figure of eight, as shown in figure n. 
 
 FIG. II. Above Half-Hitch. 
 
 Below Knot completed. 
 
 The knot is now done, and you gently pull all 
 tight, bringing the whole knot forward away from 
 the head of the fly so as to lie as close as possible 
 to the forward end of the loop. Note that the 
 sides of the loop of the fly should be squeezed 
 together as the knot is pulled tight, and with a 
 quite new and unused loop it is an advantage, 
 after drawing the knot tight, to give the sides a 
 slight squeeze with the teeth and then give a second 
 pull. If that be done, the figure of eight knot 
 
 M 2
 
 182 KNOTS 
 
 is almost perfection. Whatever knot you may 
 employ, if the fly has never before been used, you 
 must give extra care to the knot. A new, unused 
 loop, unless perfectly soaked or carefully squeezed 
 with the teeth after the knot is drawn together 
 as I have described, will have grown softer after 
 a certain amount of fishing, and on a sudden jerk 
 from a salmon the gut is apt to cut itself in the 
 knot as you may see from the broken end after 
 you have realised the loss of your fly and the 
 salmon. Why it cuts the gut in this way is not 
 very plain. Even if the loop is of fiddle-string, 
 which softens at once and can be tied directly it 
 is thoroughly wetted, yet a new, unused loop seems 
 to resist the squeeze of the knot, and is liable to 
 break off upon the sudden snatch of a salmon, 
 unless extra care has been used to see that the 
 knot has settled itself firmly in the new loop. 
 
 The figure of eight knot in either form is a good 
 and reliable knot for all stout gut, and it has the 
 merit of being easy to untie. To loosen it you 
 hold the fly close up to the knot and with the 
 thumb nail push aside the final loop of gut (the 
 one that you made when you turned back the 
 loose end round the gut link after the reef knot or 
 half-hitch). As soon as this is moved it is easy 
 to get hold of it and pull out the end of the gut, 
 leaving only the half-hitch or the reef knot, which 
 is undone at once. 
 
 Whilst we are untying knots there is one useful 
 little tip that is absurdly simple, but still may not
 
 SLIP KNOT FOR METAL EYES 183 
 
 occur to your mind. One often cuts off the fly, 
 knot and all, and then afterwards one wants to 
 untie the knot and have the fly ready to put on 
 again. It is by no means easy to untie such a 
 knot, and it is, of course, most risky to try to cut 
 the gut in the knot unless you take some means 
 to make sure that you shall not cut the loop of 
 the fly. Well, if you force the point of a pin 
 under any bit of gut that you wish to cut, and 
 then shave along the pin with the blade of your 
 knife, you cut the gut without the least risk to 
 your fly. The knife blade is, of course, held at 
 right angles to the pin and almost flat upon it. 
 This little tip can be used just as easily for remov- 
 ing the fly from the cast in the first instance. 
 
 For tying gut to eyed hooks or to the ring of 
 a swivel the best knot is one of the very simplest 
 things in the world. You have merely to thread 
 the eye or ring upon the end of the gut, then turn 
 that end back and give it a single knot round the 
 gut, and then run up the sort of primitive slip knot 
 that you have made. 
 
 It looks a quite inadequate knot, but you will 
 find that it answers perfectly. 
 
 Detail : 
 
 1. Pass the loose end once (if the fly be a large 
 one, twice) through the metal loop, then, with the 
 end, tie a single knot round the gut above the fly 
 (thus you form a sort of slip knot). 
 
 2. Before running up the slip knot pull that 
 single knot firm and tight (but do not strive to
 
 1 84 KNOTS 
 
 jam it hard or you will spoil the roundness of your 
 cast at that point). 
 
 3. Work the knot quietly down upon the metal 
 loop, pulling the gut line tight, and thus forming a 
 sort of tightened slip knot. Figure in. shows this 
 knot before it is pulled tight. 
 
 FIG. III. Knot for Eyed Hooks, or for Swivel Loops. 
 
 This knot, if properly made and tightened, is 
 very strong indeed, and very little liable to ' neck ' 
 or ' knuckle ' in casting. If you do give a sudden 
 jerk to the fly the slip knot upon the smooth 
 metal eye has sufficient play to avoid the cracking 
 off of the fly. 
 
 In a really high and gusty wind I do not think 
 that any fly but one with its loop made of fiddle- 
 string is entirely free from the risk of being cracked 
 off when you are using a big salmon rod. If the 
 fiddle-string loop had no other merit than this one, 
 it would be well worth while to have a few flies tied 
 upon such loops for use on very windy days. On 
 such days you have quite enough to do to cast the 
 fly clean and to get it to the place you wish, and it 
 is a great blessing to feel that you need not bother 
 about any risk of snapping off the fly, or of striking 
 a fish with a fly dangerously weakened by the 
 strains and jerks inevitable in a high wind. You 
 have only to look at the fraying of your gut cast
 
 JOCK PURVIS 185 
 
 that occurs during a day's fishing in a gale of wind 
 to realise what severe treatment the gut has had. 
 
 THE DOUBLE BLOOD-KNOT FOR SALMON GUT 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, I promised you a few wrinkles ; 
 here is the greatest tip that I have ever learnt 
 about salmon fishing, by far the most valuable 
 piece of knowledge, and one that has saved me 
 many salmon and many, many pounds in 
 salmon gut. 
 
 Not only is this the neatest knot that can be 
 used to connect strands of gut, but it is far and 
 away stronger and more durable than any other, 
 and the knot, instead of being much weaker than 
 the average strand of your cast, is quite as strong 
 as any other part of it. 
 
 For eighteen years I have shown this knot to 
 brother anglers and have never met a salmon fisher 
 who knew it, and at the present time I believe 
 that not one of the London tackle-makers 
 knows how to make it. Out of hundreds of casts 
 bought from all kinds of tackle-makers that I have 
 seen in the hands of other fishers, there has not 
 been one on which this knot was used, although I 
 understand that the knot is known to one or pos- 
 sibly two country tackle-makers who jealously 
 preserve their secret. I owe the knowledge of it 
 to the accident of finding, in the post of chief 
 engineer of a White Star liner, upon which, in the 
 year 1892, I was travelling round the world, a
 
 1 86 KNOTS 
 
 keen salmon fisher, born and bred upon Tweedside. 
 I hope that he will forgive an exceedingly grateful 
 angler and pupil if I name him without adornment 
 as Jock Purvis. A keener fisherman never lived, 
 and when the thumping of his engines was substi- 
 tuted for the sweeter music of the Tweed, he con- 
 soled himself by making up flies and tackle, and 
 amongst other things in studying this knot. 
 Having obtained some casts upon which the 
 coveted knots were to be seen, he set them in wax 
 and cut sections of them in order that he might 
 examine them with his microscope. At length he 
 perceived how the knot was constructed, and 
 finding accidentally that I also was among the 
 salmon fishers, he showed the knot to me. But 
 to know how this knot stands when drawn tight, 
 and to be able to tie it easily, are two very different 
 matters. With a good deal of trouble we could 
 reproduce the correct knot from time to time, but 
 the discovery of the method by which this knot 
 can be tied with the very greatest ease by any one, 
 and (as I have often proved) can be tied in almost 
 complete darkness when you have to hold your 
 hands against the sky in order to see anything at 
 all of what you are doing this was not made until 
 later. 
 
 D.O.D. the ' dear Granpa ' of your baby days, 
 to whom you and I owe so much besides fishing 
 found that out, and now to tie the knot is sim- 
 plicity itself. The only requisite is that the gut 
 must be well soaked before you begin it.
 
 THE BLOOD-KNOT 187 
 
 The knot is tied thus : 
 
 (i) Lay the ends of the two strands of gut side 
 by side as you wish to tie them and about 
 
 A. 
 
 C. 
 
 FIG. IV. a. The first half of the Knot. 
 
 b. The whole Knot, loose. 
 
 c. The Knot, pulled tight. 
 
 one-eighth of an inch apart, holding them 
 with your left hand, the end of the left- 
 hand strand being nearer to your body. 
 (2) With your right hand take the nearer end 
 and wind it three times round the other 
 strand (winding over and away from you).
 
 i88 KNOTS 
 
 (3) Then bend the end back and poke it down 
 
 between the two strands where your left 
 thumb was. Figure TV. a. 
 
 That is half the knot done : the other half 
 consists in doing exactly the same thing with the 
 opposite half of the knot. 
 
 (4) Shift the half knot as it stands into your 
 
 right hand. 
 
 (5) Take the loose end and bring it over the 
 
 strand towards you and so wind three times 
 round the link of the gut. 
 
 (6) Then bend it back and poke it upwards 
 
 between the two links so as to lie beside the 
 other loose end, but pointing the opposite 
 way. Figure iv.6. 
 
 Then, to pull the knot tight, slightly moisten the 
 left finger and thumb, and with them hold the 
 knot lightly whilst you pull the ends firmly and 
 sharply. The knot will run up into a complete 
 and translucent roll with the two ends sticking out 
 at right angles, and they can then be cut off short. 
 Figure iv.c. 
 
 The beginner will find it an advantage when he 
 wishes to pull this knot tight to get a friend to 
 hold the knot for him, with a finger and thumb 
 moistened in water, so that the tier has both 
 hands free to pull the knot tight. But with a 
 very little practice no help is needed ; you hitch 
 the gut round the root of your little finger (or of 
 that and the next finger), just as a woman holds
 
 THE BLOOD-KNOT 189 
 
 her wool in knitting, and that leaves your thumb 
 and finger of that hand free to hold the knot, and 
 so both to damp it and to prevent it slipping. 
 
 In tying the knot one or two things must be 
 remembered. 
 
 (1) The two ends must be twisted in opposite 
 
 directions, to get the twist continuous, or 
 else the knot will be spoilt. For the knot 
 is nothing more than two strands twisted 
 together for six complete turns and then 
 having their loose ends brought back to 
 the centre and stuck through this twist 
 in opposite directions. 
 
 (2) The gut must be well soaked, and it is better 
 
 though not essential to damp the gut at 
 the moment before the knot is pulled tight. 
 
 Before cutting off the projecting ends it is well 
 to give them a good pull, and until you become 
 well practised in tying the knot the ends should not 
 be shaved off too closely. Soon you will tie it 
 so securely that the ends may be cut off as close as 
 a knife can shave them. 
 
 A great advantage of this knot is its economy of 
 the gut. It can be tied so as to leave ends of no 
 more than half an inch or even less, and in a strand 
 of gut that is running thinner and weaker towards 
 the end you can bring the knot exactly to any 
 point that you may wish. With expensive gut or 
 thick gut in short lengths this is a great benefit, 
 both saving your gut and giving you fewer knots
 
 KNOTS 
 
 in your cast. With this knot, when fishing, you 
 can and should retie your cast on the spot, if it 
 shows any sign of weakness. You can, if necessary, 
 make up a complete new cast of single gut the 
 gut having been soaked, of course in from five 
 to ten minutes. You can also and I find this of 
 great use for a rapid change of flies in cold weather, 
 or when the light is bad or at any time when one 
 intends to try a change and then resume fishing 
 with your former fly you can keep your change 
 fly on a strand of gut and soak that in a tobacco tin 
 or in a bit of wet flannel (or in your mouth or 
 inside the stocking over your waders), and then 
 cutting off the last link of your single gut (with the 
 fly), tie on your new link ready tied to its fly. For 
 any one who does not often change his flies, two or 
 three flies, each on a good long strand of gut, will 
 provide all his changes for the day. And the two 
 links should be tied together whilst you may count 
 ten, in less time than it will take even to tie on a 
 fly, far less, of course, than the time needed to 
 untie one fly and to tie on another. 
 
 This most ingenious knot is nothing but a double 
 blood-knot. Each strand of the gut runs straight 
 through the knot, both lying within it side by side 
 and jammed together by the rolls outside it, so 
 that the harder the gut is pulled the more firmly 
 do these rolls jam. The great suitability of the 
 knot for tying gut is due to the fact that each 
 strand of gut does enter the knot in this way and 
 go right through it without any bend whatever,
 
 THE BLOOD-KNOT 191 
 
 and to the strain being taken by the jamming of 
 these two straight pieces together. 
 
 Who was the ingenious person who invented 
 this knot, or who first thought of applying the 
 method of the blood-knot to tying salmon gut no 
 one knows ; but he most certainly deserves the 
 perennial gratitude of all salmon fishers. 1 
 
 1 Quite lately there has been introduced a twisted cast, said to be 
 Japanese, made of what looks like endless gut, which may do away, 
 if it becomes generally used, with all these risks and difficulties. It 
 is to be had of Robertson of Glasgow. But I think that silkworm 
 gut will hold its own for some time, though I do not see why a silk 
 plaited thread coated with celluloid should not be a cheap and perfect 
 substitute.
 
 XX 
 
 OF WADING, WADERS, AND CLOTHING 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, There are things that you can 
 do in your youth that you have to regret and to 
 pay pretty dearly for in after years, and among 
 them is the habit of much wading without waders. 
 It is all very well in summer when the water is 
 warm, and feels only cool and refreshing as it 
 swishes round your knees, but in spring and in late 
 autumn, when the water is nearly freezing and the 
 air often is actually at freezing-point, you can wade 
 unprotected, and no doubt you will do it, but it is 
 an act of boyish folly which, if you fish much, will 
 ensure for you, as it has done for me, agonising 
 cramps and much rheumatism in later years. 
 
 Even in warm weather it is a pretty foolish thing 
 to do regularly, or except as an occasional venture, 
 but in really cold waters you should be warned 
 most earnestly, not only to wear good waders, but 
 also to have thick clothes and warm underclothing. 
 Standing in cold water for hours together takes all 
 the heat from your limbs, and the moisture and 
 perspiration condenses on the inner side of the 
 waders, which become quite damp, and the 
 knickerbockers that are rubbing against the damp 
 
 192
 
 CRAMP 193 
 
 waders are kept damp also, and this, if you fish 
 much, brings on to a certainty cramps, rheumatism, 
 or sciatica in later years. But if you always, when 
 wading, will wear a pair of thick woollen drawers, 
 you will find that your legs keep dry and warm, 
 however damp the outer clothing may get and 
 however thin it may be. The underclothing next 
 your skin keeps dry notwithstanding that moisture 
 goes on condensing on the inner side of the cold 
 wader. Years of neglect on my part have taught 
 me a severe lesson, for they have made cramp in 
 the feet and thighs a dread enemy in spring and 
 late autumn fishing, and I urgently beg you not to 
 neglect this warning. If you do find yourself a 
 victim of cramp, however, half a teaspoonful of 
 bicarbonate of soda which you can get in almost 
 every house because the cook uses it to make her 
 cakes light and her plum-puddings dark in a 
 wineglass of water, taken before you go out, will 
 generally keep cramp away for that day. 
 
 In cold weather an extra pair of socks pulled 
 over the feet of your stockings is a good thing to 
 keep you warm, and so is pulling the stocking tops 
 over one's knee instead of turning them down, as is 
 commonly done. Quite apart from fear of cramps 
 to come, it is worth while to keep warm because 
 it makes fishing so much more pleasant, and 
 because, if you keep your legs warm, your hands 
 will not so easily get to that pitch of numbed 
 stiffness that every salmon fisher knows when 
 they are utterly unable to untie a knot, and when, 
 
 N
 
 194 OF WADING, WADERS, AND CLOTHING 
 
 after your day's fishing is ended, the return of 
 warmth to your fingers can almost make you 
 dance with pain. 
 
 Stout brogues with good nails are another 
 essential to comfortable wading in heavy water, 
 and to keep the nails renewed will save you many 
 a ducking in places where the wading is bad. 
 You should buy a few pennyworths of stout hob- 
 nails, and then you can always with a stone drive 
 a few nails into the soles of your brogues if you 
 find your foothold bad. If you get much fishing 
 it is well worth while to spend a shilling or two 
 on an iron foot, such as cobblers use to put inside 
 a boot when they wish to hammer nails in the sole, 
 but if you have not got such a foot, a good wedge- 
 shaped stone slipped inside the brogue will serve 
 the purpose. But do not hammer nails into a 
 sole when it is very dry, or you will find that whilst 
 you are hammering in one nail half a dozen others 
 near it will start up and become quite loose. 
 Soak the leather and then drive your nails 
 into it. 
 
 Great controversy rages in the smoking-rooms of 
 fishing inns as to whether you should or should not 
 wear a strap round your waist when wading in 
 dangerous waters. Many anglers assert that if 
 you do use a belt, and do not allow the water to get 
 freely into your waders, if you should have to 
 swim for your life the buoyancy of your legs will 
 drown you by causing your head to go under water 
 and your feet to bob about on the surface like
 
 SWIMMING IN WADERS 195 
 
 corks. I have even met men who vowed that they 
 had seen this happen. Well, that is all utter 
 nonsense. A salmon fisher who has been swept 
 away by the stream may be stunned or numbed 
 by having his head or his limbs struck hard 
 against a boulder, or he may be dazed by the 
 knocking about that he gets when he is trying to 
 struggle to his feet in a swift current that is 
 tumbling him along down the stream, but he has no 
 need to fear the result of having air in his waders. 
 His feet will not bob about on the surface or sink 
 his head. I have tried it more than once by 
 deliberately upsetting out of a boat when crossing 
 the river in my waders, and the result is nothing of 
 the sort. The buoyancy is enough to keep your 
 legs well up, but it does not bother you at all, and 
 you swim quite easily, although the clumsiness of 
 the waders makes you very slow, and the weight of 
 water in the waders makes it difficult to get out if 
 the bank is high. Indeed, when the legs of the 
 waders do fill with water it becomes much harder 
 to swim, although you can do it well enough if you 
 swim carefully and keep calm and go with the 
 stream. The real danger is that when you slip 
 in heavy water you struggle to recover yourself 
 and get greatly knocked about and flustered in the 
 attempt to regain your footing or to reach the 
 bank at the point where you fell in. 
 
 You cannot be too careful when you have to 
 cross swift, glassy currents. They are generally 
 much stronger than they look, and when the river
 
 196 OF WADING, WADERS, AND CLOTHING 
 
 is rising you must be specially careful in such places 
 one inch more water may make them ten times 
 more dangerous than they were before. Always, 
 if possible, find a stout staff with which to steady 
 yourself and to feel your way in heavy water, but 
 if two of you have to cross dangerous water or a 
 rising river, go in together walking abreast (facing 
 across the stream), and let each with one hand 
 grip fast the shoulder of the other at arm's length. 
 Wading so, you support each other, and you can 
 cross water where one man alone would be swept 
 away; the upper wader breaks the force of the 
 current and is himself supported by the lower one. 
 Not only when you have to cross the stream, 
 but always when you are wading in big waters, 
 unless the weather has been absolutely settled, 
 you should be on the look-out for any rising of the 
 river. In most rivers that have their source 
 amongst the mountains a sudden rise of the water 
 may occur at the most unexpected time. Heavy 
 rain overnight and many miles away from you, or 
 a thunderstorm amongst the hills, may fill the 
 mountain streams, and many hours later, when you 
 are fishing, with no idea of what is coming, the river 
 will suddenly rise and give you precious little time 
 to make yourself safe. The first signs that you will 
 see are little straws, chips, and dry leaves floating 
 by, and if you look at the edges of a gravel bed the 
 water begins to swell up round the dry stones, 
 as in a cup that is brimming over, in a way that is 
 unmistakable. But when you see those straws
 
 REPAIRING WADERS 197 
 
 and bits of grass floating by, look about you, and 
 make sure that your retreat is safe ; a rising 
 salmon river may be a very dangerous thing, and 
 many of them rise very fast. I have reached the 
 bank more than once to find that the water was 
 already four or five feet deep where I had been 
 wading comfortably two minutes earlier, and 
 there are few salmon fishers who have not had 
 pretty narrow escapes from a dangerous swim and 
 the loss of their rod, if nothing worse. 
 
 There are one or two more points about waders. 
 Always patch your waders before they are quite 
 worn through rather than after waiting until they 
 have once let in the water. As you know, the 
 material consists of two sheets of strong twill or 
 canvas-like material with a layer of rubber between 
 them. Take a patch, cut out of an old wader, 
 heat it at the fire, and you can easily split it into 
 thinner sheets, each having the outer twill and 
 either a thick or a thin slice of the rubber core that 
 lies between them. Then with a tin or a tube of 
 india-rubber solution you can mend the worn place 
 quite easily, and the thinner patch will stick fast 
 where a thicker one would unduly stiffen the 
 material, and consequently would very soon have 
 got rubbed off in fishing. The tendency to rub 
 off always exists in some degree, but it can be 
 cured by the use of a most excellent stuff lately 
 invented, 1 which seems to vulcanise or harden the 
 rubber and makes a new patch stick absolutely 
 
 1 Called Goodrich's cold vulcanising solution and acid. 
 
 N2
 
 198 OF WADING, WADERS, AND CLOTHING 
 
 fast. I believe in putting on one very small 
 patch barely covering the worn spot on the 
 waders, and then putting over that a much larger 
 piece of thin material just to protect the first 
 patch. If you have no patching material some 
 celluloid varnish soaked into a place that is wear- 
 ing will keep it water-tight for a long time. 
 
 The fishing life of waders depends, first, on their 
 being a good fit, for badly fitting waders wrinkle 
 and rub together and very soon cut through at 
 the places where they rub ; and, secondly, it 
 depends on the care used in turning them inside 
 out to be dried and in turning them back again. 
 Nothing destroys waders more than carelessly 
 tugging and tearing at them to get them inside 
 out, and you should be very sure of the persons 
 who have to do this. It is an owner's job. 
 
 As laces for your brogues you will find nothing 
 better than a bit of common plaited blind cord, 
 and four or five feet of the same cord makes a most 
 useful sling with which to carry a salmon. You 
 double the cord and make a slip knot at his 
 tail, then pass the loose ends through the fish's 
 gills and out of his mouth, double him up into 
 a half-circle and knot the ends, with a half hitch 
 or two, round the tail again. You can easily 
 carry a couple of small fish of 8 or 10 Ibs. apiece 
 on the same string by looping your string round 
 the tail of one, then passing it through the 
 gills of both, and fastening it to the tail of the 
 second one.
 
 199 
 
 The socks that are worn over the waders, to 
 protect them from being cut or rubbed through 
 by the sand and small stones that get into your 
 brogues, should be good thick ones. It is a good 
 plan to have the soles of these socks double knitted, 
 or else roughly darned with coarse wool to about 
 twice the ordinary thickness, and they will then 
 last very much longer, and your waders will do the 
 same. 
 
 Now, as to the general colour of one's clothes. 
 Don't have any bright colours about you, any 
 visible handkerchief or cuffs, and if you wear a 
 white collar when fishing you shouldn't take 
 care that it is hidden by turning up the collar of 
 your coat. Salmon have very sharp eyes, and 
 though you may catch salmon if you are dressed 
 in white clothes or in all the colours of the rainbow, 
 yet your chances of catching them will be much 
 better if they have not already seen you when the 
 fly comes to their notice. As your mother says, 
 you seem to catch more if you look like a tramp. 
 Sober colours that suit reasonably with the colour 
 of banks and trees are much the best thing to 
 wear. 
 
 A big-brimmed, soft felt hat is a great joy in 
 heavy rain. It keeps out the wet and does not get 
 sodden and heavy, and it acts like an umbrella 
 in keeping the rain from running down your neck 
 inside your clothing. Such rain as soaks through 
 one can be endured, but I have yet to meet the 
 fisherman who is really happy when the rain is
 
 200 OF WADING, WADERS, AND CLOTHING 
 
 running down his neck. And salmon take well 
 or often take well in heavy rain, so don't be 
 persuaded to take shelter or to stay at home just 
 because it is raining hard. That is the very 
 chance on which I have many a time taken the 
 best fish, but when I do fish in rain I like to have a 
 good hat to turn the rain. On very wet days, too, 
 the short cape taken off an old ulster and put 
 round the shoulders, and buttoned or tied only at 
 the neck, makes a very good waterproof to fish in. 
 It throws off nearly ah 1 the water, and does not 
 make you hot and impede your fishing as the usual 
 fishing mackintosh does. But the cape should 
 be a very short one and fairly heavy.
 
 XXI 
 
 TACKLE AND ACCESSORIES 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, There is no need to repeat the 
 A B C. These things you may find in many books. 
 I have said something about rods in an earlier 
 letter (No. i). If you choose a rod, be sure that 
 it is not a very whippy one. A rod that feels as 
 if it had no backbone is a bad rod for salmon 
 fishing, but if for trout it is a perfect curse. And 
 though a whippy rod undoubtedly has merits in 
 the eyes of some anglers, there can be little doubt 
 that it is the worst possible form of rod for a 
 beginner. He wants not a heavy rod, nor neces- 
 sarily a stiff rod, but one with a quick, springy 
 action, bending more at the top than in the butt. 
 I think that split cane without a steel centre gives 
 very nearly the perfection of action. A perfect 
 greenheart can fully equal it in action, but is not 
 so durable nor so free from risk of purely acci- 
 dental breakages, and such greenhearts are not 
 so common as are perfect rods of cane. For 
 salmon fishing, as you know, I use rods with steel 
 centres, because I happen to have three beautiful 
 rods of that kind, but I think the steel centre is a 
 mistake, and the rod, if it be really well made, 
 is not only cheaper but better without a steel 
 
 201
 
 202 TACKLE AND ACCESSORIES 
 
 centre, and the action is ' sweeter ' and more 
 lively. 
 
 For the joints of the rod no vaseline should ever 
 be used. It never should be used for any brass 
 work. A bit of hard mutton fat the cold fat of 
 any cooked joint of mutton is much the best 
 thing to use. It will keep sweet for weeks, and the 
 least rub of it will prevent the joint from sticking 
 and help to keep the wet out of it. 
 
 To free a sticking joint there is a contrivance 
 called the Spanish windlass. Double a bit of 
 string and twist it round the upper ferrule so as to 
 bring the loop close to the joint. Then put a 
 similar loop of string twisted round the opposite 
 way on the lower ferrule. Put a bit of stick 
 through each loop, and then a very great leverage 
 can be got to twist the ferrules in opposite direc- 
 tions. 
 
 I learnt a useful lesson in 1899 from a Norwegian 
 boatman. Whilst he was trying to get a 4^ Ibs. 
 yellow trout into the landing-net the trout sud- 
 denly dashed under our boat and broke the top of 
 my rod short off at the joint. After the fish was 
 secured we went ashore to refit. There was a spare 
 top in the net handle, but the difficulty was to get 
 out the brass part of the broken top, which was 
 stuck fast in the joint with only a quarter of an 
 inch projecting. We were miles away from home, 
 and I thought the game was up, when Olaf began 
 to run about and picked up an enormous piece of 
 stone weighing about 40 Ibs., but having one very
 
 A ROUGH AND READY VICE 203 
 
 sharp edge. He got me to hold the broken joint on 
 a round boulder, then he carefully placed the sharp 
 edge of his rock on the projecting quarter of an inch 
 of brass and bore heavily upon it. Of course this 
 held it like a vice, and I was able with ease to 
 twist off the sound part of the rod and put in the 
 spare top. 
 
 Reels. Always see that your reel is firmly 
 fastened on the rod before you fish for salmon. In 
 the excitement of the fight you are very apt to 
 loosen it, and quite a number of times I have 
 known a fisher's reel fall off and generally the fish 
 has been lost by it. It has happened to me I 
 think more than once and only a fortnight ago, 
 on my last day's salmon fishing, I saw it happen to 
 a friend landing the third salmon of his life, a 
 fish of 26 Ibs., foul hooked in the back fin. How- 
 ever, help was at hand, and he was able to get the 
 reel on again and ultimately to land the fish, 
 although it had been actually ashore on the op- 
 posite bank and was leaping and splashing 
 eighty yards away from him when he got the reel 
 in its place again. 
 
 You ought to get a good reel, and they are not 
 cheap. But a cheap reel is seldom a really reliable 
 one, and any injury by a slight blow or by accidents 
 which are often quite unavoidable at the river-side 
 may cost you a day's fishing or more. You ought 
 to have two reels, one with a light and one with a 
 heavy line, ready and in working order, and you are 
 then reasonably independent of accident. Never
 
 204 TACKLE AND ACCESSORIES 
 
 lay a reel down upon sand. A few grains of sand 
 may choke or spoil it altogether. 
 
 Lines. Your lines must be dried every night, 
 and before being put away for the season should 
 be fully put out and left to dry for two or three 
 days. A good plan is to wind your lines round 
 the legs of a table, and there is nothing equal to 
 the lumpy legs of a billiard-table for winding lines 
 on. Twelve yards go to each round, and you can 
 easily put three or four lines out on one table. 
 
 Hooks. See that your hooks are as stout, stiff, 
 and rigid as possible. A great many hooks are 
 unreliable, they bend open or even break behind 
 the barb. The best that I have found are Adling- 
 ton's Dublin hooks. And the points should be 
 extremely sharp, and the line of the point should 
 be parallel to the shank, not turned out. The 
 latter is a fad based on the fallacy that the line 
 of the shank is the line of the pull, and that to turn 
 the point out a little will ensure its burying itself 
 deeply. Just think : a flexible line is attached to 
 the head of the fly and is pulling the point of the 
 hook against something. Take a fly with a foot of 
 gut or string and try the effect of putting the point 
 against anything and pulling on the string. You 
 will see instantly that the line of pull is directly 
 from point to head. 
 
 I have found bronzed hooks generally to be 
 badly tempered, and often in the present patterns 
 the point is made so finely tapering that the 
 extreme point is apt to break off in the fish, leaving
 
 HOOKS 205 
 
 you with a blunted hook, which you may not notice 
 until you have lost a good fish or two which have 
 risen and have not been held. 
 
 Sharpness is vital, the fish's skin is tough and 
 shiny, and you must always have a tiny slip of 
 whetstone and see that every hook you use is as 
 sharp as a needle. The point often gets blunted 
 whilst you are landing a fish by his rubbing it 
 against the gravel, and often gets blunted by a 
 careless cast slashing the sand or the bank behind 
 you. If in casting you touch a stone behind you 
 with the fly you may hear a click and your fly has 
 now neither point nor barb. If you do hear 
 your fly touch the gravel, stop at once and examine 
 the point. How many dozens of good fish I have 
 known lost from this cause. 
 
 Double hooks I do not like ; my own experience 
 of them is altogether unfavourable. But in very 
 dark or heavy water they help to sink the fly. In 
 repeated trials that I have given to double hooks 
 I have lost an enormous number of fish upon them, 
 both by failing to drive the hooks home at the 
 rise, and by their coming out later on. And in 
 October 1900 I landed a fish of 16 Ibs. upon a 
 large double hook, and I noticed that it was then 
 held by the left hook only. But there were five 
 other holes quite near the existing hold, and the 
 place where the other hook had held was cut to 
 ribbons. Each hook had penetrated to the bone 
 and had been levering the other out as the fish 
 ran about and the pull came from different direc-
 
 206 TACKLE AND ACCESSORIES 
 
 tions. But the loss of a fish of over 40 Ibs., as I 
 believe, on the i5th September 1903, ended my 
 last trial of double hooks. After eleven minutes' 
 play from the time when I was able to look at my 
 watch the hook came away, and I found that the 
 fish had grubbed and scratched the exposed hook 
 against the stones until he had opened out the 
 hook that held him. With a single hook he had 
 been mine. 
 
 For very small flies I like eyed hooks. They last 
 longer and are easily changed ; they are cut off the 
 gut and a new fly is tied on in an instant with the 
 sliding knot. The time when you are driven to 
 your small flies is the very time when you wish to 
 change the fly fairly often. 
 
 I think the best thing in the way of a box to 
 carry one's salmon flies is an aluminium pocket 
 cigar-case, with a slip of flannel or of old blanket 
 gummed into each half, in order to hook the flies 
 in it. This will hold about forty flies, and a couple 
 of spare casts will go comfortably round under the 
 rims. The common tackle-makers' cases, with 
 metal clips to hold the flies, rust the hooks unless 
 you never put a wetted fly back into them. 
 Whatever form of fly-box you use it should be left 
 open to dry after wet flies and gut have been put 
 in it, or else some fine day you will find a lot of 
 your best flies and gut totally rotteji. 
 
 As a bag to carry salmon (or waders) there is 
 nothing to equal the ordinary carpenter's basket, 
 called a ' frail.' You want a slip of sacking to
 
 ALDER LEAF 207 
 
 keep the frail clean. With a good frail and a stout 
 stick for the shoulder you can easily manage to 
 carry three big fish or four smaller ones. Besides, 
 you can carry the frail and a rod over the same 
 shoulder, leaving one hand free. 
 
 Freeing tackle. At first you will often catch 
 the bottom towards the middle or end of your cast. 
 The beginner, to free his fly, keeps on pulling, but 
 that is not the way to do it. Whether you are 
 fishing fly or anything else, directly you find that 
 you have caught the bottom you should cease to 
 pull and let the line go slack so that the water 
 may wash the line and gut down-stream of the 
 point where the fly is hooked up. Then after a 
 few seconds, if you raise your point firmly, you 
 will generally find your hook comes free, the actual 
 pull on it having come as a down-stream pull from 
 the gut which has been carried past it by the 
 current. Now as to gut. I do not think staining 
 the gut any strong colour, black, blue, or yellow, 
 is an advantage. I think clear gut with no 
 glitter is the best, and you will think so if you 
 hold it against the sky beside a stained strand. 
 And the glitter can be wholly removed by 
 a few rubbings of the new gut cast with the 
 crushed leaf of an alder. The alder grows by 
 every river-side ; its leaf stains the outside of gut 
 green. The gut looks like a thread of grass until 
 the green colour washes off, and in a very short 
 time all glitter disappears also a most invalu- 
 able tip for sunny weather.
 
 XXII 
 
 ON SPAWNING SALMON 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, John Kirkbride in 1837 
 lished his Northern Angler, and in it gives the best 
 description that I know of all the old north- 
 country flies, whether hackled or winged, and 
 whether for trout or salmon. But he also gives 
 the view of salmon spawning that was current in 
 his time, and he tells us the kind of stuff that had 
 been solemnly sworn to by the greatest pundits of 
 that day. He says : ' According to Mr. Halliday 
 and Mr. Little, two witnesses examined before 
 a Committee of the House of Commons, spawning 
 is accomplished in the following manner. The 
 male and female fish select a suitable place in 
 the running water where the bottom is gravelly, 
 and play round it for some time. They then 
 begin to make a furrow by working up the gravel 
 with their noses. When the furrow is made they 
 throw themselves on their sides and rubbing 
 against each other shed their spawn into it ; and 
 they cover the furrow with loose gravel as they 
 proceed upwards. . . . Although the roe of the 
 female contains from 17,000 to 20,000 eggs, 
 only one can be excluded at a time. The fish, 
 therefore, continue daily increasing the number 
 
 208
 
 THE ONION BED THEORY 209 
 
 of furrows for several days and form a bed about 
 twelve feet by eight or ten. The spawning bed 
 is easily known by the thrown-up gravel ; by some 
 it is said to resemble an onion bed. Mr. Halliday 
 states that he has seen on one spawning bed 
 three pairs of fish at one time. Should the male 
 fish be destroyed in the act of spawning, the 
 female leaves the bed and retires to some deep 
 pool to find another mate. . . . The ova remain 
 in these beds completely covered with loose gravel 
 for several weeks or till the genial warmth of spring 
 occasions their evolution. From the gravel the 
 young fish, their tails appearing first, are said to 
 spring up like a braird of corn/ 
 
 What a pretty picture, isn't it ? These sub- 
 aqueous onion beds with the little fishes sprouting 
 up out of each parallel furrow in the gravel in 
 thick rows like sown corn, and ' their tails appear- 
 ing first/ Such a masterly touch of detail 
 intended, as W. S. Gilbert says, to give veri- 
 similitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing 
 narrative. I should think even our Members of 
 Parliament must have opened their eyes as they 
 gulped down these fables. 
 
 Well, to this day statements which to me are 
 very surprising are copied into some of the very 
 best books on angling. 
 
 Even Mr, Gathorne-Hardy, in his charming 
 little book on salmon (which you should most 
 certainly read as soon as you can), says of the 
 spawning salmon that ' the eggs are hidden most 
 
 o
 
 210 ON SPAWNING SALMON 
 
 cunningly and covered with gravel to some feet in 
 depth.' I have been quite unable to find any 
 eggs after the surface gravel has once been scraped 
 away, although I have found plenty scattered 
 about among the loose stones at the top, or very 
 lightly covered with the sand and small pebbles 
 disturbed by the splashings of the spawning 
 female. And in our hatcheries covering up the 
 spawn to any depth has always, I believe, resulted 
 in failure. Certainly the constant practice is 
 the exact reverse, the eggs, both of salmon and 
 trout, being kept in shallow troughs with a 
 constant stream of water flowing over them. 
 
 A very recent book by one of the ' champion 
 fly-casters/ who write books to instruct salmon 
 fishers, makes the male salmon with his nose dig 
 a hole in the gravel two feet deep, after which the 
 fish place their spawn at the bottom of this pit 
 and then fill it in. None of your furrows and 
 onion beds here. I wonder if the author has ever 
 tried, even with a stout shovel, to dig a hole two 
 feet deep in the gravel in a rapid stream. If he 
 had, I think his views of the feat performed by 
 the salmon would be somewhat modified. The 
 fish wouldn't, I think, have much nose left by 
 the time his hole was dug. 
 
 I once met a gallant sportsman in Norway who 
 informed me, as of a fact which brooked no 
 discussion, that the gib of the male salmon was 
 just a digging tool to delve this grave in the gravel, 
 and that this was so was proved beyond all doubt
 
 THE GIB 211 
 
 by the fact that the gib was gone in the spring, 
 and it could only be worn away on the gravel. 
 I hope that I do his argument no injustice, but 
 this belief is by no means uncommon. However, 
 I think that most people now believe that the use 
 of the gib is for fighting. It is rigid only when 
 pressed from the inside of the mouth, and when so 
 pressed a distinct though blunt and smooth point 
 can be felt, and its apparent handiwork in the 
 shape of handsome whitish scrapes or scars can 
 be seen on many of the males in spawning time. 
 Besides, it is the males alone that have the gib, and 
 so far as I could see in many watchings the male 
 never did anything that could disturb the gravel. 
 It is the violent kickings of the female, which has 
 no gib, that seem to be the cause of the gravel 
 washing away down the stream. Besides, the 
 common trout spawns on redds or spawning beds 
 formed exactly like those of the salmon, and the 
 trout develops no gib at all. 
 
 For about fifteen winters I have very seldom 
 missed going to see the salmon spawning, and I 
 have watched closely some hundreds of salmon 
 actually spawning, and the fish that I have seen 
 do not appear to be doing what has been so often 
 described. But it is not very easy to see accurately 
 what is happening on a gravelly bottom, perhaps 
 in stained water and nearly always in a swift, 
 rippling stream, which is the position commonly 
 chosen by salmon for the purposes of spawning. 
 But twice I have seen fish big salmon spawning
 
 212 ON SPAWNING SALMON 
 
 in water which, though clear and fairly swift, 
 was running over a smooth gravel bed and was 
 not rippling water, so that the fish could be seen 
 perfectly, and even the eggs coming from the 
 female could be seen from time to time, and in 
 each of those cases nothing of the kind was taking 
 place ; no trench was being dug, no perceptible 
 amount of gravel was being disturbed ; when the 
 fish had left the place one could see that they had 
 done nothing to cover over their eggs with gravel, 
 nothing had been disturbed except possibly a 
 little sand amongst the stones. Of course it is 
 unusual to find fish spawning in such a place ; 
 they generally choose rough streams with loose 
 gravel, and then the gravel does wash down and 
 the hen fish almost always has a certain amount 
 of disturbed gravel below her, sometimes only a 
 small patch a couple of feet wide and three feet 
 long, sometimes, especially in strong streams 
 and where many fish have come to spawn, a patch 
 five or six feet wide and eight or nine feet long, 
 and occasionally one even larger than this. But 
 even in strong streams fish often have to spawn 
 where the bottom consists largely of stones not 
 yet rounded by the water, and there I have many 
 times seen them hard at work, but with no visible 
 disturbance of the stones anywhere near them. 
 I do not feel at all positive about this matter, 
 but from what I have seen I think that the 
 disturbance of the gravel is not a mechanical 
 digging or stirring of it up, but is an incidental
 
 ROE 213 
 
 though probably beneficial result of the violent 
 struggles of the fish in spawning in a gravelly 
 stream. And I certainly think that the spawn 
 does not drop into the gravel straight below the 
 fish in the slight hollow in which she is usually 
 lying, but, being only just heavier than water, is 
 carried down the stream by the current and rolls 
 into crevices in the gravel, and the disturbance of 
 the gravel by the fish causes a certain amount of 
 fine gravel and sand to wash down and helps 
 to conceal the spawn from ducks and eels and 
 its other enemies. If, many yards below where 
 a fish has been spawning, you stir up with a 
 shovel the surface of the gravel, you can easily 
 see the peas of salmon roe that you have dis- 
 turbed being swept away. They do not keep 
 on the bottom, but swirl up with the water, 
 almost, but not quite, able to float. They are 
 obviously only a very little heavier than water. 
 Roe in the fish itself, or roe that has been stripped 
 artificially from the fish, is in colour a fine bright 
 salmon pink ; but roe quite ripe and spawned 
 naturally by the fish seems to be generally of a 
 translucent, purplish pink colour, by no means 
 easy to see amongst the gravel, though visible 
 enough the moment that you stir it up into the 
 current. But some of the peas, even in the 
 river, are of an almost chalky salmon pink colour, 
 and are very easily seen. These I rather suspect 
 to be dead or infertile eggs. 
 
 But, you may say, why the kicking that one 
 
 02
 
 214 ON SPAWNING SALMON 
 
 can see, unless it be that the fish is trying to rout 
 up the gravel ? My answer would be twofold. 
 First, that I have seen the female kicking with the 
 greatest vigour in the usual way when she was 
 spawning over hard gravel which she was not 
 touching, and was not disturbing, and also on 
 rocky, or rather rough stony bottom, when she 
 was unable to disturb the stones, however much 
 she wished it. Secondly, that her violent wrig- 
 gling or kicking is, I believe, done to promote the 
 extrusion of the spawn. At Christmas of 1887 
 or 1888 I was with your great-grandfather upon 
 the Tees near Dinsdale netting salmon in order 
 to obtain spawn for the fish hatchery. The 
 method which he discovered and adopted in order 
 to ' strip ' the female fish of her spawn was to 
 get one of his men to seat himself on the bank, 
 and to hold the fish between his knees, belly 
 upwards, putting one hand under her back and 
 with the other gently forcing her tail downwards, 
 when the ripe peas of roe were squirted out in a 
 continuous stream. 
 
 I am going to reprint for you his experience of 
 seeing salmon spawning, but as I was intending 
 to write a letter to you on this subject I determined 
 to take the first really good opportunity of again 
 seeing the fish spawning and to write down on 
 the spot what I saw without reference to any 
 preconceived theory of what I expected to see or 
 thought I ought to see. Well, yesterday and to- 
 day the chance came to perfection, and I did write
 
 NOTES ON SPAWNING 215 
 
 down on the spot, as I saw it, what was happening, 
 and here it is : 
 
 On Sunday, January 3, 1909, a glorious mild 
 winter's day, I went up to the Devil's Water, a 
 tributary of the river Tyne, with one of you boys 
 to see the salmon spawn. The stream is about 
 twenty to thirty feet wide, and on the shallows 
 was then about eighteen to twenty-four inches 
 deep. We reached the water at 2.30 P.M., and 
 here are the notes of what we saw. 
 
 Three single fish were lying above the railway 
 bridge. One was a splendid cock fish of 28 to 
 30 Ibs. One fish about 7 or 8 Ibs. lay within two 
 feet of the bank below our feet, and we could see 
 that not a fin was moving, though he lay in 
 quite fast-running, shallow water, but resting 
 quite still upon the stones. You, D., may 
 remember touching him with my walking-stick, 
 to make sure that he was alive, and nearly falling 
 on the top of him when he dashed off, splashing 
 the water all over you. 
 
 One pair, each fish about 18 Ibs., was spawning, 
 but too far out to be seen very accurately. They 
 lay in about two feet of water, and the disturbed 
 gravel below them rose to within sixteen or 
 eighteen inches of the surface. Dozens upon 
 dozens of patches of disturbed gravel showed 
 the spawning grounds used by earlier fish, and the 
 farmer's ducks were greedily going over all the 
 shallower places and evidently doing themselves 
 very well indeed. Higher up the stream a fish
 
 216 ON SPAWNING SALMON 
 
 could be seen splashing from time to time, doubt- 
 less another female spawning, but the water was 
 so broken where she lay that nothing could be 
 made out precisely. 
 
 Then we went below the bridge and presently 
 saw a splash. Coming opposite to the place 
 we saw that it was a female fish about 10 Ibs., 
 showing a very bright side when she turned on 
 her side to spawn, and we could see her com- 
 panion, a red cock of 12 or 14 Ibs., keeping a foot 
 or two below her, but occasionally ranging 
 alongside. We crept to the bank, sat down and 
 kept quite still. Presently a big wave appeared, 
 coming up out of a deeper pool forty yards below, 
 and then a big cock fish of 19 or 20 Ibs., with a 
 white mark on his nose and several more along his 
 back, sailed up to the spawning pair, followed by 
 a female fish of 24 or 25 Ibs. of a light pinky red 
 colour. The original male sheered off across the 
 stream, but his female only edged into the shallower 
 water, a couple of feet nearer to us, and continued 
 to spawn, whilst the big new female was throwing 
 herself from time to time, her big male keeping 
 beside her, sometimes a little above, sometimes a 
 little below her, and overlapping her by about 
 half his length. 
 
 Owing to her brightness, the throw or struggle 
 of the smaller female is very clearly seen. She 
 comes to the surface turning half on her side 
 (and three out of four times on her right side), 
 arching her back, and then she gives five or six
 
 FEMALE SPAWNING ALONE 
 
 vigorous, shuddering wriggles or kicks, curving her 
 body and violently straightening it again, and 
 during this series of wriggles she moves up- 
 stream about eighteen inches or two feet. Then 
 she sinks to the bottom and remains quiet for 
 about three minutes. She throws every three or 
 four minutes, but the male less often. The big 
 female throws at long intervals, and when she 
 does so she turns almost flat on her side. 
 
 Presently, after fifteen minutes, the big female 
 turned and went down the stream, followed by the 
 male. The smaller red male then came across 
 the stream and lay beside his mate for six minutes. 
 Then leaving her he forced his way splashing up 
 the fast but very shallow stream above where 
 they lay for forty or fifty yards, and after a few 
 minutes he came back down the stream with a new 
 sweetheart, passed his former mate, and the two 
 then turned and ranged up in the stream some 
 seven or eight yards below her. She continued to 
 spawn alone, and threw four or five times at 
 intervals, without any mate near her. 
 
 She was lying in only eighteen inches of swift 
 water beside a rather deeper rush. No gravel 
 was disturbed under her head, but disturbed gravel 
 began to be visible (by the lighter side of the stones 
 showing) about the level of her tail, and some 
 continued for perhaps seven or eight feet below 
 her. She lay in hardly any perceptible hollow ; 
 certainly the water there was not six inches deeper 
 than that over the gravel below her. Presently
 
 218 ON SPAWNING SALMON 
 
 her mate left his new friend and came up to her. 
 Two or three times he came alongside and a little 
 below her and gave a slight kicking, but there was 
 no vigorous shuddering such as the female gave. 
 
 Then after a time we went down the stream to 
 look for more fish. Presently we saw a small, 
 bright fish's head lying in the water. About 
 twenty yards below was the tail half of the fish, 
 a fairly bright little grilse of about 4 Ibs., eaten 
 away, backbone and all, as far back as the ventral 
 fins, no doubt at all by an otter. I went down 
 and cut open this tail part, but there was no sign 
 of milt or of roe inside it. 
 
 At twelve minutes to four we returned to our 
 former spawners. The female was still at work ; 
 we could see plainly that she always rose to the 
 top to throw the spawn, that her nose during this 
 struggle was not on the bottom, and that she 
 moved up-stream a little more than a foot in the 
 process, but sank back to rest at the same spot 
 each time. 
 
 Presently a male appeared outside her, came 
 close behind her and threw, and remained lying 
 with his head overlapping her tail. He threw 
 with ten or twelve wriggling kicks much less 
 vigorous than hers, with his back fin and back 
 showing out of water, not visibly on his side, 
 and each time he spawned he moved up two feet 
 until nearly level with the female. He did this 
 four times, between 3.50 and 4 P.M., and after 
 four o'clock he continued to do so every minute
 
 A RESTING SALMON 219 
 
 for some time. Probably he was there when we 
 arrived and had moved off into deeper water on 
 seeing us come, for he returned to the female 
 directly we sat still. 
 
 Then we had to go home, but at 4.15, above the 
 bridge, we saw a fish of 12-14 Ibs. again within 
 three feet of the bank in eighteen inches of water, 
 which was running at the rate of about two to 
 three miles an hour, yet the salmon was lying 
 absolutely motionless on the bottom, his right 
 pectoral fin pressed by the current against the 
 upper side of a stone, and the tail and all the 
 other fins slack, except the left pectoral fin, 
 which was held tight at a slight angle against the 
 current.
 
 XXIII 
 ON SPAWNING SALMON continued 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, To-day, the 4th January 1909, 
 you two boys and your mother and I went again 
 to the Devil's Water, and I took up my short 
 waders and a stout shovel. Here are the notes of 
 what we saw : 
 
 On a redd above the bridge lay a cock fish of 
 about 20 Ibs. weight, with many white marks or 
 scars along the back and on the gill covers. He 
 was alone and was lying in about a foot of water, 
 and the redd, five feet below him, rose to within 
 five to six inches of the surface, the water having 
 fallen several inches since yesterday. A small 
 hen fish about 6 Ibs. was lying close to the bank 
 about twelve feet away, and almost opposite the 
 former fish. 
 
 Below the bridge there are no fish at the place 
 where we had seen them so well yesterday, but 
 two hundred yards lower down the stream we 
 can see the frequent splash of a fish lying just 
 above the next pool on a swift shallow where we 
 saw freshly moved gravel, but saw no salmon 
 yesterday. When we get there we find that the 
 splashing fish is a big female of 18 Ibs. or more, 
 and lying beside her is a male of 12 or 13 Ibs.,
 
 ON THE REDDS 221 
 
 with many whitish marks along his back and a 
 strongly marked white patch on his nose about 
 the size of a shilling. He lies slightly to the right 
 side of the female with his nose just level with her 
 tail, and he makes no visible movement at all, 
 although she throws herself repeatedly to spawn, 
 with violent splashings and strugglings, and after 
 each effort sinks in the water and drops back to 
 her lying-place near him. 
 
 Presently a second male swims quickly up and 
 ranges alongside the first male, and then goes 
 over to the other side of the female and lies nearly 
 level with her. Number one takes apparently 
 no notice for a minute or two, then he turns and 
 glides down the stream into the deep water 
 below, followed after another minute by number 
 two, who had apparently done nothing at all 
 but come up, lie for a minute quiet beside the 
 female, and then go down. The female con- 
 tinued to spawn alone. Every few minutes 
 her splashings began, and each time some male 
 fish came up towards her out of the deeps 
 though not always coming quite up to her and 
 then dropped back again. 
 
 After half an hour a big male appeared and 
 made a rush at the spotty twelve-pounder, who 
 had returned to his mate, and who now bolted 
 down-stream and hovered about, some seven or 
 eight yards below her. After another half-hour a 
 second pair of big salmon appeared and lay at 
 first quite close under my bank and three or four
 
 222 ON SPAWNING SALMON 
 
 feet from the other pair, and there the female 
 threw herself once to spawn. Then she edged 
 out across the stream until she came alongside 
 the other pair, her mate following her, and then 
 the four salmon lay side by side and almost, if 
 not quite, touching each other. Upon this I 
 slowly worked myself down the bank until my 
 face was close to the water and within four or 
 five feet of the nearest fish. Then one of the 
 males came over towards me, saw me, and bolted 
 back full tilt into the others, and all but one 
 female ran down-stream. Then after a few 
 seconds she also seemed to see me and dashed 
 off. Then the spotted fish of 12 Ibs. came up in 
 the edge of the stream within arm's length of me, 
 then moved out to the lie or hollow, but im- 
 mediately saw me and bolted away again. I 
 moved back a foot or so and pulled up three or 
 four dry seed stalks of dock which had been 
 bent down, and made them stand up beside my 
 head so as to break the outline of it, and within 
 a few minutes of doing so the four salmon came 
 back with two other much larger fish, male and 
 female. All six fish lay side by side, five of them 
 apparently touching each other, and the sixth 
 lying about eighteen inches away from the group. 
 The actions of the male fish were very odd ; one 
 male, a very strong dark red in colour, but 
 without a mark of any sort and of about 16 Ibs. 
 weight, showed no hostility to the smaller spotted 
 male which lay beside him, but kept sliding up
 
 DWELLING TOGETHER IN AMITY 223 
 
 against the female on her right side, pushing her 
 head slightly across the stream with his shoulder, 
 and getting his own body across the current 
 which washed him down under the female, lifting 
 her back quite out of water until he had been 
 washed right down under her body. This he 
 repeated five or six times with only a very short 
 interval between them, and it is the only time 
 I have ever seen that done by a fish. Later on 
 two fish left the redd and went down-stream, and 
 when the four were left together one big male 
 kept crossing over the backs of the other three 
 fish, apparently sliding himself over their backs, 
 but always keeping his head very much up-stream 
 so that he slipped across their backs in a slanting 
 direction. Possibly he was shedding his milt 
 over them so that it might be washed over the 
 eggs lying in the gravel; I cannot tell. The 
 current was very fast quite a swift rapid and 
 the water was about fourteen to eighteen inches 
 deep in the hollow where the fish lay. The gravel 
 below them rose to nine or twelve inches below 
 the surface, and a bed of disturbed gravel ex- 
 tended about eight or nine feet below the tails 
 of the fish where they lay. I put on my wading 
 boots and went in to measure the depth of water, 
 and to see if any spawn could be seen and where 
 it was ; whether it was buried or whether it was 
 on or near the surface. I found that the gravel 
 below the lie of the fish was (as one supposed) 
 all loose, and at the tail of the stream, where the
 
 224 ON SPAWNING SALMON 
 
 water deepened, the gravel stood up quite steeply, 
 obviously washed down over the old unbroken 
 gravel of the pool. 
 
 When I stirred the gravel with my shovel I 
 could see at almost every stir of the shovel a 
 few peas of salmon roe being washed away, but 
 found it very hard to bring up any of the peas 
 of roe on the shovel. By digging out solid 
 spadefuls deeper down in the gravel I found only 
 one or two peas of roe out of many spadefuls, 
 and could not be sure that even those few were 
 really buried deep in the gravel. But by scraping 
 together some of the surface gravel and then 
 getting up a big shovelful of that, I was able to 
 gather a good many peas of spawn, though many, 
 indeed most, were washed away as the shovel full 
 of gravel was being lifted in the current. I could 
 get no roe at all in the hollow just where the fish 
 were lying, and I am quite certain that they 
 were not depositing any large quantity of ova 
 there to be covered over later on, for I should 
 have seen the peas of spawn there on disturbing 
 the surface of the gravel as easily as I saw them 
 lower down, but I could see none in the hollow, 
 none whatever. 
 
 Again, I could make out pretty clearly that the 
 spawning female fish was not disturbing the gravel 
 with her nose as she threw the spawn, but that 
 she rose each time to the surface with back and 
 side often well out of water, giving vigorous, 
 shuddering kicks, or violent, sudden wriggles.
 
 STIRRING GRAVEL 225 
 
 One female, the biggest of all, got almost flat on 
 her side each time that she spawned, the other 
 two not so much so. 
 
 Several times, out of very many, with extremely 
 violent struggling the water was splashed about, 
 and sand and mud and gravel were stirred up, 
 but I was unable to make out that any part of 
 the fish had touched the bottom. It appeared 
 but I could not be positive of this that it was 
 only the violent surging of the water with her tail 
 that caused the sand and gravel to be stirred 
 up and washed down the rapid. Only very rarely 
 was sand or gravel visibly stirred up. Each 
 time that I saw gravel and sand stirred up the 
 fish shifted her position across the stream a yard 
 or more with much splashing and swirling of 
 water, and at each stirring the fish was not on her 
 side but was swimming upright, though making a 
 swirl in the water like that made by the blade of 
 an oar. From the almost invariable formation of 
 a redd, and always below the spawning fish it 
 is, I think, pretty clear that the disturbance of 
 gravel is intentional, and is done to provide cover 
 for the spawn or clean gravel for it to lie on, or 
 possibly for both purposes, but how far the fish 
 attempts any gravel-moving operation except her 
 natural kicking in a strong current running over 
 gravel, I cannot determine. But I do not think 
 that there is any touching of the gravel, and I am 
 almost certain that there is no grubbing with her 
 nose whilst she is throwing the spawn. Possibly
 
 226 ON SPAWNING SALMON 
 
 she may do something with tail or fins to loosen 
 the gravel whilst she seems to be quiescent on 
 the bottom, for a spawning fish does not keep 
 absolutely still like a resting fish, but (and more 
 especially the male) moves up and down the 
 stream, swimming, not merely resting on the 
 bottom. 
 
 I have said that generally there is a redd, or 
 stream of disturbed gravel, below the spawning 
 fish. Several times I have seen fish spawning 
 where they had made no such redd and no dis- 
 turbed stones were visible. Once in December 
 1902, in a big, clear water, I saw a good female 
 salmon spawning on a hard, gravelly bottom 
 in two feet six inches of water and without 
 a single disturbed stone being visible. Every 
 time she threw herself, a grilse and a couple of 
 sea-trout, lying six or seven yards below her, 
 moved hurriedly up and had a dash at the roe 
 a few feet below her, and once or twice her 
 mate swung round and scattered the plunderers, 
 chasing them right away, but no sooner did he 
 return to his place beside his companion than 
 they also drew up to their posts below her. 
 
 To return to the 4th January 1908. What struck 
 us most for the whole family was there was 
 the way in which the males came and went, and 
 apparently without jealousy. Only once did we 
 see a fish attack a smaller, and repeatedly rival 
 males of different sizes were ranged side by side 
 in perfect amity.
 
 EGGS NOT COVERED UP 227 
 
 Having seen all that we could on the redd, which 
 we had watched for well over two hours, we 
 moved up to the place where continuous spawning 
 had been going on the day before. The water 
 was a good deal lower and the fish had left this 
 place, so that, according to accepted theories, 
 the hole in which they had been lying should 
 have been filled with spawn and then carefully 
 covered in with gravel by the fish. I went out 
 with my shovel to examine it. 
 
 The hollow was exactly as it had been the day 
 before. Only one pea of roe could be found 
 in it, and none by digging up the bottom, though 
 many were found scattered amongst the surface 
 gravel over some twenty or thirty feet below 
 not merely amongst the disturbed gravel which 
 extended for only about eight or nine feet below 
 the little hollow. 
 
 Well, that was the end of our day. It began 
 to grow too dark to stay any longer, and the dog- 
 cart was waiting for us, so we went home, after 
 putting a few peas of roe with some gravel into 
 a bottle in order to try the effect of a little amateur 
 fish-hatching on the part of two very small boys. 
 The eggs all went bad one by one, each turning 
 first to the chalky salmon colour that I have 
 mentioned before, and then to a dull, lifeless 
 white. 
 
 It was almost impossible to desire a better view 
 of the fish than we had during these two days. 
 Some results of these observations did not agree
 
 228 ON SPAWNING SALMON 
 
 with my former beliefs nor with what I thought 
 I had seen in earlier years. We saw practically 
 no fighting among the males, and very little fear 
 or jealousy. The milting of the cock fish was 
 done very quietly, and, as far as any movement 
 showed, very seldom. For longish periods the 
 females were alone, yet went on spawning busily. 
 It seems to me that there is room for a lot of 
 accurate observation before we shall be very sure 
 of what really does happen in these wintry waters 
 of ours.
 
 XXIV 
 
 TALES OF A GREAT-GRANDFATHER 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, I have mentioned already your 
 great-grandfather, John Clervaux Chaytor, who 
 gave me my first lessons in fishing. He lived al- 
 most all his life at Croft on the Tees, and he caught 
 his first salmon in 1820, when he was fifteen 
 years old, and his last in the year 1889. He was 
 a member of the Tees Fishery Board, and was a 
 very close observer of the habits of all fish, and 
 about twenty years ago he printed for private 
 circulation an account of his observations in a 
 small pamphlet of some twenty-seven closely 
 printed pages. But now very few copies exist, 
 and I count it a pious act to reprint here those 
 parts of his notes which deal with his observations 
 upon the spawning of the fish, and also a few of his 
 general observations. One most valuable wrinkle 
 he gave me which has often enabled me to detect 
 even at a distance the poacher of salmon smolts. 
 From the old bridge at Croft he saw a man at 
 least a hundred yards lower down the river catch 
 a sturdy little fish. He said, ' It is a smelt, 
 though it is a big one. You will see him throw it 
 back.' I could not imagine how he could possibly 
 tell this. It was done by knowing the fact that 
 
 p 2
 
 230 TALES OF A GREAT-GRANDFATHER 
 
 a young salmon, or a parr or smolt of any other 
 kind, when lifted out of the water, kicks and 
 wriggles vigorously until actually secured by the 
 hand, whereas a small trout lifted out on the line 
 almost always hangs quietly or at most gives but 
 a few kicks. It is an absolutely certain way of 
 knowing a young trout from a parr or from a 
 smolt. 
 
 NOTES BY MY GRANDFATHER 
 
 When the frosty "nights of autumn set in, and 
 the leaves begin to fall, the fish are impelled to 
 the exercise of their reproductive functions. 
 They keep to the streams, and the roe which has 
 been slowly maturing in them increases rapidly 
 in bulk, and at the end of October or the beginning 
 of November a little fresh water will set them to 
 work on the streams. Many of the early-running 
 fish ascend the tributaries ; and an old kipper 
 fisher, who was a native of Lunedale, told me 
 that they began to look for them in the Lune 
 about the 5th November ; and I have found on the 
 first of the month a spawning bed in the main 
 river that must have been made at least a day or 
 two before. Before the operation of spawning, 
 as it is seen in the Tees, is described, mention 
 may be made of two persons who might be ex- 
 pected to adhere to facts. Dr. William Chambers, 
 in an article in Chambers' s Journal, says that the 
 fish deposit their spawn ' agglutinated together ' ; 
 and Sir Humphry Davy, in Salmonia, says that
 
 ROE 231 
 
 they make a trough in which they deposit their 
 spawn, and then cover it up with gravel, the male 
 fish in particular being so energetic that he gets 
 the end of his nose turned up. Both these 
 writers are very wide of the mark : the ova are 
 not agglutinated, the fish do not make a trough, 
 and the male fish does not get the end of his nose 
 turned up, and neither the female nor the male 
 makes the slightest effort to cover them up. 
 The roe consists at first of a mass of membrane 
 intermixed with blood-vessels and small granular 
 bodies like sand. As these blood-vessels increase 
 in size a separation into two lobes becomes 
 distinct, and the ova acquire the well-known 
 salmon colour, at the approach of the spawning 
 season occupying nearly all the cavity of the 
 abdomen, which is then greatly distended. The 
 milt, or soft roe of the male fish, consists of two 
 vessels which extend the whole length of the 
 abdominal cavity, filled with a white leathery 
 substance which remains firm and solid till the 
 time when it has to sustain its part in the re- 
 productive process. Then it is gradually con- 
 verted into a thick milky fluid, beginning to 
 liquefy near the vent from which it exudes as it is 
 required. Omitting for the present the question 
 of colour, the female undergoes little change 
 except in bulk. The male, however, puts out a 
 remarkable excrescence, not from the nose, but 
 from the under jaw. This gib, as it is called, 
 wears a cavity in the nose, and sometimes grows
 
 232 TALES OF A GREAT-GRANDFATHER 
 
 so long that the nose is actually divided by it ; 
 sometimes it grows on one side, and misses the 
 nose entirely. In very young males it is merely 
 rudimentary : that of the scurf (sea-trout) is 
 smaller in proportion to its size than that of the 
 salmon, and so also is that of the bull-trout. 
 The gib disappears soon after spawning, being 
 rapidly absorbed. The condition of the fish 
 being sufficiently advanced, they proceed to 
 select their ground, which is by choice where the 
 stones are not too large nor too fast for them to 
 move, nor too loose so as to close in upon them. 
 The strength of the stream and the action of the 
 fish cause the uprooted gravel to form beds 
 frequently several yards long when the fish are 
 numerous, among which some of the ova find a 
 resting-place, being covered to a depth of several 
 inches, while the greater number are carried away 
 by the stream. When they find the conditions 
 unfavourable they seek a fresh place, though 
 where there is a considerable stretch of bad ground 
 they will persevere notwithstanding. They usu- 
 ally begin near the head of the stream, the smaller 
 fish in the shallower and weaker, and the larger 
 in the deeper and stronger parts of the stream. 
 The operation is considered to last about two 
 days more or less, but it is not always continuous, 
 as a flood or other disturbance may retard it. 
 Occasionally a combat takes place among the 
 males, and they fight furiously, sometimes inflict- 
 ing on each other serious injuries. I have seen a
 
 SPAWNING 233 
 
 hen fish which had apparently been pinched all 
 along the back from head to tail. The wounds, 
 however, were not deep, and did not hinder her 
 from spawning, as she was taken on the redd along 
 with several others. It is not easy to get a clear 
 view of what happens beneath the waters of the 
 Tees at the time of the year when it would be 
 most interesting to see what goes on there. Wind, 
 rain, snow, cold, hush, floods, light and shade, in 
 various combinations, contribute to cut short or 
 to destroy altogether the chance of seeing clearly, 
 and it is not surprising that some inaccuracy 
 should occur ; but some fail to see, and others to 
 comprehend, what is before their eyes, and 
 substitute fancy for fact. Avoiding that error 
 as far as possible, I will describe what I saw on 
 the most favourable opportunity that I ever had. 
 On the 6th November I went to the low stream 
 at Dalton Batts, and found everything favourable. 
 At a height of twelve or fourteen feet some large 
 branches of a plane-tree projected horizontally 
 over the stream, and on one of these I stood. 
 Where the streams met at the bottom of the 
 island there was a ridge of gravel terminating in 
 a point, which formed two channels in the river 
 bed. In the middle of the nearest channel 
 there was a depression occupied by a pair of fish 
 which were at rest. The male had some skin 
 rubbed off his nose, which showed a white mark. 
 A few yards farther away, near the top of the ridge, 
 another pair occupied a similar hole, the first pair
 
 234 TALES OF A GREAT-GRANDFATHER 
 
 being 5 or 6 and the other 7 or 8 Ibs. At intervals 
 the females, applying their noses to the gravel, 
 threw themselves on their sides with their nose 
 pressed against the ground, and with rapid jerks 
 of the tail expelled a portion of the ova, the males 
 remaining perfectly still. Suddenly a small fish, 
 which had been close to the edge of the water and 
 directly under my feet, rushed in behind white 
 nose's mate, and instantly fell back again. This 
 manoeuvre, evidently for the purpose of getting 
 the ova, was repeated every time the spawning 
 fish ' threw/ and only then, but was put an end 
 to by a large fish which came bustling up from 
 the deep stream below. He made straight for 
 white nose and his mate, and settling himself in 
 their hole, which he completely filled, sent them 
 both adrift ; then he went to the other pair, and 
 did the same to them. Finally he swept away 
 the pirate, which was a female, with his tail, 
 and disappeared after the others in the stream 
 below. Next day the water was more discoloured, 
 and only one fish was to be seen. This was the 
 larger female, and she was working by herself 
 with her tail above water, having apparently 
 found the gravel more easily worked downward. 
 Then came white nose towards his own hole, but 
 quickly departed again, doubtless knowing that 
 the big bully was not far off. The latter, indeed, 
 soon appeared, darting in various directions, 
 chasing away the small fish, but not pursuing 
 them far. I made out that he had found a mate
 
 NETTING 235 
 
 as big as himself, who had just begun to work at 
 the lower end of the ridge in the deeper water, 
 and I could trace the mud which she had stirred 
 up for several yards down-stream. Then a large 
 male fish, which appeared like a yellowish shadow, 
 came up on the other side of her, but disappeared 
 again pursued by the first male, reappearing from 
 time to time when the other returned to his 
 station beside the female. In many years I 
 never had so good an opportunity ! and I have 
 endeavoured, at the risk of being tedious, to be 
 accurate, which is the main requirement. Intend- 
 ing to get a good haul of spawn for hatching, I 
 returned at dusk with a lantern, a bait-tin, two 
 milk cans, a shackle net, two old kipper fishers, 
 and a policeman. The occupant of the ridge was 
 still there, but as soon as the pole touched her 
 tail she made off. Lower down, where the pair 
 had been seen, I netted the male, unfortunately 
 without his mate. He was a grand fish about a 
 yard long, but, being of no use by himself, was 
 turned out of the net into the water, where he lay 
 like a log, making no attempt to escape, as 
 frequently happens when the fish are handled at 
 that season. The old kipper fishers were emphatic 
 in the expression of their opinion that it was a 
 shame that such a fish should be allowed to 
 escape ; but I was inexorable, so we returned 
 as we went, re injecta. On another occasion the 
 luck was equally bad, for a man who had released 
 a trout from the bag of the net which was then in
 
 236 TALES OF A GREAT-GRANDFATHER 
 
 use forgot to tie it, so that the fish went through, 
 and the rising of the water put an end to the 
 operations. The salmon often backs out of the 
 net ; the scurf pushes forward and tries to force 
 its way through. In a dark night they can be 
 distinguished from each other by putting the finger 
 into their mouths, when the strong, sharp teeth 
 of the scurf are easily felt to differ from the 
 smaller and less prominent teeth of the salmon. 
 Reverting to the spawning : the female is much 
 exhausted by the violence of her efforts to expel 
 the ova, and quits the stream for the still water, 
 while the male continues to hang about the place, 
 probably because the milt is not ready all at once 
 as the roe of the female is ; and it may be that its 
 gradual exudation may reach such ova as may be 
 deposited by the female in his absence, besides 
 insuring his presence in case other females should 
 turn up. The number of males taken with nets 
 by the Tees water-bailiffs for hatching purposes 
 is much greater than that of females, the numbers 
 for this season (1886-87) being eighty-four males 
 and twenty-eight females, and they had as many 
 as nine males without a female in one draw of the 
 shackle net. With the rod the numbers are 
 reversed, that of the females greatly exceeding 
 that of the males. The female does not always 
 eject the whole of her spawn ; some few ova 
 frequently remain in her. In one case a fish taken 
 with the rod in March had more than four 
 hundred left in her ; the exact number was not
 
 HATCHING 237 
 
 ascertained, as the counters tired when they got 
 to four hundred. It would seem that in the 
 rough and ready process of spawning above de- 
 scribed, some of the ova might not get covered at 
 all, while some would get too deep. Doubtless 
 both these things happen. While the egg is 
 covered up among the gravel, it is impossible to 
 trace the changes which take place before it 
 emerges as a fish, and it is necessary to have it in 
 a position where such changes can be observed. 
 My own contrivances for that purpose have been 
 of a very primitive order. The first was an 
 ordinary bait can, into which I put ten eggs 
 taken when I was assisting Mr. Samuel Wilkinson 
 and Major Flamstead, active members of the Esk 
 Angling Association, who were desirous of restoring 
 the true salmon to the Esk at Whitby, and whose 
 efforts to that end, I am happy to say, have been 
 successful. Recovering from an accident which 
 confined me to bed for several weeks before the 
 hatching was due, I found one fish alive, and 
 forthwith transferred it to a pie dish. When the 
 time came that it had to be fed, lean meat and fish 
 of all kinds were minced very small and given to 
 it, and it ate them indiscriminately. When it 
 was wanted to feed the water was stirred with a 
 penknife, and the current immediately set it on 
 the alert. It took only such particles of food as 
 were in motion, taking no notice of those which 
 settled to the bottom. It became so tame that, 
 after the water was set in motion, it would rise
 
 238 TALES OF A GREAT-GRANDFATHER 
 
 to the surface of the water where the food was 
 being introduced with the point of the knife. 
 After some time it took those particles only which 
 were sinking below itself, indicating that it was 
 losing its sight. This proved to be the case, for 
 a white speck was forming on the upper part of 
 the eye, which, growing larger, at length obscured 
 the whole sight, and the fish died. The water 
 was only changed occasionally, just enough to 
 prevent fouling by the unconsumed particles of 
 food. In all succeeding experiments there never 
 was another so apparently tame, because when the 
 numbers were greater they alarmed each other. 
 Of those which came to life in a pie dish, two 
 survivors throve fairly well for a time, the water 
 being changed two or three times a week. This 
 water was brought from the river, and the last 
 canful contained two young minnows, which 
 consisted chiefly of eyes and shadows, so trans- 
 parent were they. No sooner did the little salmon 
 perceive them than they followed them about, 
 and examined them attentively. They did not 
 attack them that day, but next morning both the 
 minnows were gone ; one of the salmon was dead, 
 and the other so shaky that I turned it out into 
 the river. This fish had only one eye. To 
 return to the egg, which at first is perfectly round, 
 though it gradually becomes pear-shaped, and 
 which is so transparent that what takes place in 
 the interior can easily be seen, at least in the first 
 stages. Little drops that look like oil separate
 
 BIOLOGY 239 
 
 and rise to the top, where they form a sort of 
 nucleus, about the centre of which vital action 
 originates. The drops vary in size, in number, 
 and in intensity of colour, and the darker they are 
 the stronger the fish that comes out, When the 
 egg comes to rest this action begins almost im- 
 mediately, and any material disturbance is fatal 
 after they have remained motionless for about 
 twenty-four hours, the vital forces which tend in 
 an upward direction being apparently unable to 
 sustain the shock of a sudden reversal, neither 
 can they endure a sudden violent change of tem- 
 perature. They cannot, indeed, be moved with 
 safety until the fluid contents of the outer mem- 
 brane become sufficiently consolidated, and that 
 is not till the eyes are visible. This is in about 
 fifty-eight days ; but no precise date can be 
 given, as there is sometimes a difference of a 
 week in the hatching of eggs taken from the same 
 parent at the same time, and undergoing precisely 
 the same treatment. The outer membrane, at 
 first transparent, becomes opaque and apparently 
 thicker, but not so as to hinder the growth of the 
 young fish from being seen, somewhat indistinctly 
 it is true, but still it can be discerned curled up in 
 its narrow cell. In about eighty days the mem- 
 brane bursts and the young fish emerges, the back 
 generally being the first part to appear. Some- 
 times it requires a little assistance to free itself 
 from its covering, which then resembles a piece of 
 white skin. Immense eyes, a transparent body
 
 2 4 o TALES OF A GREAT-GRANDFATHER 
 
 with a large yellow bag beneath it, and a gaping 
 mouth give it a helpless look. After a short rest 
 it begins to try its locomotive powers, and darts 
 about at intervals like a small balloon, sometimes 
 head first, sometimes tail first, and apparently 
 without any definite object ; but when more 
 accustomed to the exercise of its new powers it 
 uses them instinctively for the purpose of hiding 
 itself, and the greatest numbers are to be found 
 crowded together in the darkest corners of the 
 breeding-place. While they are transparent they 
 are particularly well adapted to be viewed under 
 the microscope ; the intermittent current of the 
 arterial blood running from head to tail, and the 
 continuous flow of the venous blood in the opposite 
 direction being very interesting. In one that was 
 resting on the bottom of a dish (the coloured 
 figures on which were visible through its body), 
 close to the opening of the imperfect gill cover 
 there was a seeming ciliary motion of the gills, 
 which a magnifying glass showed to be the 
 pectoral fins in extremely rapid motion ; and the 
 question suggested itself, was this an effort of 
 Nature to cause a flow of water through the gills 
 which did not exist in the dish, but which would 
 always be present in the running stream ? There 
 was no response from the pie dish, and the 
 question remains unanswered. The whole process 
 is extremely interesting from the time when the 
 little oil drops begin to form the nucleus wherein 
 starts the first throb that indicates the site of the
 
 REARING 241 
 
 future heart, and whence the first streak of red 
 blood begins to permeate the yolk, to the time 
 one hundred and thirteen days when the yolk is 
 entirely absorbed into the body and the perfect 
 fish is there. Three days after the latter stage 
 young fish fed with almost all kinds of fish, flesh, 
 and fowl, free from fat, seemed to take them all 
 equally well, and when wanted to feed they 
 invariably responded to a current made by stirring 
 the water. When moved into a tub with stones 
 in it they chose their stations after the manner of 
 their elders, and the big ones took precedence in 
 helping themselves to the food. Here they 
 seemed to keep their condition pretty well, but 
 could not be kept after they had been discovered 
 by the cats, when they had to be turned out into 
 the river. When they cease to be transparent 
 dark marks like saddles may be seen on their 
 backs, which indicate the position of the so-called 
 brands or finger marks. It is not easy to keep 
 them in confinement after they get to be about two 
 inches long, as even then they show a quarrelsome 
 disposition, attacking each other from behind 
 and trying to have a nip at the tail fin. Though 
 they may have been reared in a dish they seem 
 to be by no means' at a loss how to act in the 
 river, for they immediately betake themselves 
 to cover under the stones as if they were quite 
 familiar with their new habitation, and comport 
 themselves exactly as their congeners who have 
 begun life in the usual manner. These latter 
 
 Q
 
 242 TALES OF A GREAT-GRANDFATHER 
 
 may be seen in the early summer darting about 
 from stone to stone when disturbed, quite near 
 the edge of the shallow water, as if aware that 
 there they were safe from their enemies ; but 
 their growth is wonderfully rapid, and by the 
 middle of June they may be found five or six inches 
 long basking in the sun in the shallowest streams, 
 and feeding voraciously during the long summer 
 day. In the autumn they may weigh as much as 
 four and a quarter ounces, but such a weight is not 
 common. During the winter progress does not 
 seem to be so rapid, but here we are met by the 
 constantly recurring difficulty, viz. the impossi- 
 bility of keeping the same individual under 
 continuous inspection in the natural state of life. 
 An unsuccessful spawn-catching expedition on 
 the i6th December 1876 resulted in the capture 
 of three brandlings, the largest of which was 
 about seven inches long, and the smallest three 
 and a half inches and the other five and a half. 
 They were put into a pump trough half full of 
 water, with some stones and bricks for shelter, 
 and a worm or two given to them occasionally. 
 They lived through the greater part of the winter, 
 and the little one saved itself under the stones ; 
 but the middle-sized one suffered from the attacks 
 of the big one, which contrived to nibble away 
 half of its tail fin before meeting his own end, 
 which came to pass through the trough becoming 
 too full of water. He was found on the pavement, 
 and no doubt he went overboard in making one
 
 SMOLTS 243 
 
 of his rushes at the other. The death of that 
 other, probably from want of proper food, left 
 the small survivor at peace. He did not grow 
 but was healthy and lively, and came out from his 
 hold nearly every day to take his worm ; but at 
 length a day came when he did not respond, the 
 next day it was the same, and on the stones being 
 lifted he was found crushed to death, the victim 
 of idle curiosity on the part of some stupid person 
 whose clumsy manipulation caused the fatal 
 result. The disappointment was grievous, and 
 the more so because the spots and brand marks 
 were nearly faded away, and in a few more days 
 there would have been a perfect miniature salmon ; 
 now there are only the dried remains. In April 
 those smelts which are prepared to migrate to 
 the sea begin to drop down-stream into the tide- 
 way, and this movement continues till ' the first 
 flood in May takes all the smelts away/ leaving 
 those which still answer to the description of 
 ' brandling,' and which belong to the succeeding 
 generation, though a chance ' blue back ' may 
 sometimes be found late into June. There are 
 also a few brandlings left whose size would seem 
 to indicate that they ought to have passed into 
 the smelt stage, being quite as large as those 
 which have gone away to sea. These are almost 
 without exception male fish. One remarkable 
 exception, however, has occurred in the shape of a 
 female brandling about eight inches long, which 
 did not differ in outward appearance from a male,
 
 244 TALES OF A GREAT-GRANDFATHER 
 
 but which was full of roe of a dull yellow colour, 
 the roe itself being composed of small ova, like 
 grains of sand, interspersed with nearly full-sized 
 ova, while the cavity nearest to the vent was 
 crammed full of the burst skins of the larger ova, 
 any outlet from the ovary not being perceptible. 
 This was the only occasion when I found ova in 
 the female brandling ; the reproductive organs of 
 the male fish were, at the same time, quite rudi- 
 mentary, though at spawning time in autumn 
 they would be in full activity. I7th April 1843, 
 caught a fresh-run fish, weight 12 Ibs. 12 oz., 
 only contents of the stomach three March brown 
 creepers. In the same year a fish taken 6th 
 November, weighing 5 Ibs. 10 oz., contained i Ib. 
 of roe ; 412 eggs to the ounce, 6592. 13 th Novem- 
 ber, fish 10 Ibs. 4 oz., roe 2 Ibs. 2 oz. ; 417 to the 
 ounce, 14,178. i4th November, fish 14 Ibs. 5 oz., 
 roe 3 Ibs. ; 313 eggs to the ounce, 15,024. Then 
 finding that only hen fish took I gave up for the 
 season. 
 
 The young of the common trout go through 
 their earliest stages, which are just like those 
 which the young salmon go through ; but their 
 distinctive marks soon begin to show, and differ- 
 ences in shape and colour become more and more 
 apparent as they advance in age. The young 
 salmon has some red spots along the lateral line, 
 and from one to three dark spots on the gill covers ; 
 the brands are mostly in pairs, equal above and 
 below the lateral line, equal in number on each
 
 YOUNG SEA- AND BULL-TROUT 245 
 
 side, and usually in pairs of eleven, nine, and seven. 
 The least numbers that I have seen were seven on 
 one side and six on the other ; the greatest thirteen 
 and fifteen on two of the Lune fish hatched at 
 Stockton for the Board. The brands of the bull- 
 trout are disposed with less regularity ; the gill 
 cover and the back fin are spotted with many 
 dark spots. The pectoral fins of the bull-trout 
 are of a bright orange colour, the other fins white, 
 with a narrow black fringe to the tail fin, while the 
 young trout of the same size have all the fins more 
 or less yellow. The dark spots on the back of the 
 young salmon are much fewer than those on the 
 backs of the trout and bull-trout, and are seldom 
 found below the lateral line, while those of the 
 two last are found both above and below that 
 line. On the common trout brown and red spots 
 are intermixed, the brand marks not extending 
 much above and below the lateral line, and soon 
 disappearing entirely. The scales of the salmon 
 smelts are easily rubbed off, the brand marks fade 
 away gradually, and the spots decrease ; the back 
 of the young salmon taking a steel blue shade, 
 and its fins a green colour, sometimes running 
 whitish in the lower fins. 
 
 In order to test their rate of growth, I had 
 about three hundred smelts marked in 1867 by 
 cutting off the button fin, which does not grow 
 again. I caught fish so marked repeatedly before 
 they went to sea, from whence the greater number 
 never returned, at least not to my knowledge ; 
 
 Q2
 
 246 TALES OF A GREAT-GRANDFATHER 
 
 but on the ist October in that year a marked 
 fish x was taken weighing 4|- Ibs. Taking the 
 smelt to be only i oz. when it leaves the river 
 in May, that shows an increase in weight of 
 four hundred times in sixteen months after 
 hatching. 
 
 With the male salmon at the time of spawning, 
 his combined black, brown, olive, yellow, red, and 
 gold sometimes form a gorgeous pattern which 
 reminds one of an India shawl. These colours soon 
 fade when spawning is over. I have seen salmon 
 literally black all over, but I never saw either the 
 scurf or the bull-trout black, or arrayed in the 
 gorgeous colours above mentioned ; 2 only a light 
 yellow tinge on the scurf, and more and larger spots 
 on the bull-trout. The dark tinge caused by peat 
 water is evanescent and soon disappears, either 
 on the clearing of the water or the death of the fish ; 
 but while it lasts it is sometimes impossible to 
 distinguish the bull-trout from the common trout 
 by the colour. The best indication is the differ- 
 ence between the heads, and especially the teeth. 
 A 2 Ib. bull-trout being young, his teeth are small 
 in proportion to his size ; but the 2 Ib. trout will 
 have such a gang of teeth as may be expected to 
 belong to a veteran tyrant of the water sharp, 
 crooked, and larger ; and after being out of the 
 
 1 It is doubtful whether this was not a fish which had accidentally 
 lost the button fin. 
 
 * I have often seen in other rivers female bull-trout with belly and 
 sides as black as ink ; at the same time the males looked like glorious 
 golden yellow trout. A. H. C.
 
 OTTERS 247 
 
 water for twenty-four hours the bull-trout will 
 have become much the brighter of the two. In 
 most fish, indeed, the colour induced by contact 
 with coloured substances gives place soon after 
 death to what may be called the natural hue. I 
 have taken a salmon of a dull lead colour, and 
 two others of a delicate rose colour, which faded 
 soon after they became dry, and which I thought 
 might possibly have been caused by contact with 
 the red sandstone. The sea-trout only take on a 
 yellowish tinge at spawning time, but they remain 
 longer in the river, and look like a flash of silver 
 when they spring out of the water in the light of an 
 April sun. I have sometimes caught trout in the 
 Tees which had their sides covered with a pink 
 tinge like that on the tip of the button fin, and 
 occasionally brandlings whose sides were as yellow 
 as a buttercup. In fact, shades of colour, changing 
 with changing conditions, are almost endless. 
 
 Leaving out of account man the universal 
 enemy the adult salmon have few enemies to 
 contend with in the Tees. The seal has dis- 
 appeared from Seat on Snook. The otter can only 
 supply a hunt once or twice in a season. Far 
 different was it when the old otters and their 
 young might be heard and seen on a fine summer's 
 night, whistling and playing about in the Brig 
 pool, and when the sound of the cow's horn on 
 Croft Bridge would bring together a jovial crew 
 to join the hunt with their dogs and otter spears, 
 seldom without a find. All the same, the salmon
 
 248 TALES OF A GREAT-GRANDFATHER 
 
 were not much better for the destruction of 
 their four-footed enemies by the otter hunters, 
 for the same men were expert with the leister and 
 the trows, and rarely allowed a fish to escape in 
 the summer, besides spearing them on the streams 
 at spawning time. The otter is said to be very 
 destructive to salmon by reason of a habit which 
 it has of biting a piece out of the shoulder, and 
 leaving the rest of the fish. If that be so, what 
 becomes of it ? I have for many years carefully 
 looked out for signs of otter : I have frequently 
 seen their seal where the sand would take a print ; 
 I have seen the backbone of a salmon stripped of 
 flesh ; I have seen the lower half of a large trout 
 left on a rock in midstream ; I have seen many 
 skeletons of small fish left where the fish had been 
 eaten ; I have seen ova among the otter's spraint, 
 which had passed through its body undigested ; 
 and I do not believe that the otter confines itself 
 to taking a small piece out of the shoulder of a 
 salmon. Such unqualified statements only mis- 
 lead. 
 
 The young fish have more numerous enemies. 
 In addition to the danger of being devoured 
 by larger fish of their own or of other kinds, 
 which is common to all fishes, they are liable 
 to suffer from the depredations of the heron, the 
 kingfisher, the water ouzel, and, more rarely, 
 the seagull. The destructive power of the heron 
 is well known ; fortunately none of the birds 
 named are numerous in the Tees. There were a
 
 BIG FISH A 38 LBS. SEA-TROUT 249 
 
 good many kingfishers in the Tees, but a great 
 many perished in a hard winter between twenty 
 and thirty years ago, and they have been scarce 
 since then. The water ouzel chiefly frequents 
 the upper waters ; the gull seldom conies far 
 inland and probably the damage which they all 
 do is not very material. The brandling (parr) 
 forms the most attractive bait that I know of for 
 pike, perch, and chub. Two of the latter have 
 been seen to chase one as a brace of greyhounds 
 course a hare. After many turns it was driven 
 ashore on a steep gravel bed, from whence it fell 
 back and was devoured by its nearest pursuer. 
 I don't know whether I ought to class spiders 
 among the enemies ; but one morning I found 
 in my hatching dish a large spider, and a very 
 handsome one he was, striped with longitudinal 
 bars of light and dark grey disposed alternately. 
 He was covered with long hairs ; and, on being 
 disturbed, sank in the water, taking with him 
 bubbles of air adhering to his body just as I have 
 seen the water ouzel do. The dish was standing 
 on a table in the middle of the room. Where he 
 came from, and how he got there, I know not ; 
 but appearances were against him, and I did not 
 like to trust my newborn infants in his company, 
 so I made him scarce. 
 
 There are not many very large fish taken in the 
 Tees, and probably there never will be. In a 
 river so small and so hard fished, it cannot be 
 expected that more than a chance fish now and
 
 250 TALES OF A GREAT-GRANDFATHER 
 
 then should be allowed to live long enough to grow 
 very large. James Teasdale's sea-trout, which 
 weighed 38 Ibs. when it was caught, is by far the 
 largest fish of which I have heard. I saw it before 
 it was stuffed. It was a male, and the milt was 
 whole though it was taken in April. Several 
 years ago, on the motion of Canon Tristram, the 
 Tees Fishery Board resolved to try the introduc- 
 tion of fish from the West Coast, where fish much 
 larger than the Tees fish were said to be far from 
 uncommon. It was left to Canon Tristram and 
 myself to carry out the resolution. Canon Tris- 
 tram was unable to go, but I went to Kirkby 
 Lonsdale twice, and procured another consign- 
 ment of ova to be sent. I did not see any fish 
 larger than I had seen in the Tees, and I have not 
 hitherto seen any increase in size which can be 
 traced to these Lune fish, or to the thousand 
 Rhine salmon which Mr. Buckland gave to the 
 Tees Board. It is too soon to look for the effect 
 of the Tay fish which were turned into the river 
 last year ; but, reasoning from analogy, it may 
 be expected that the introduction of fresh blood 
 will lead to improvement. 
 
 It has been supposed that my long experience 
 would enable me to say something worth hearing 
 about fishing matters ; but, unless the above- 
 written notes may be so considered, I hardly think 
 that such is the case. In these days of floss silk 
 lines, drawn gut, and dry fly, I can't pretend to 
 teach. The scientific modern angler would rate
 
 ANCIENT TACKLE 251 
 
 me little higher than an old fossil ; being, as I am, 
 one of the primaeval sort whose ' fettlements ' 
 were principally composed of a tangle of coloured 
 silks, bits of cobbler's wax, hooks, gut, feathers, 
 etc., very much mixed : who sat down on the bank 
 and imitated, as well as his skill, or want of skill, 
 would allow, the fly that was ' on/ or perhaps 
 mended his rod top with his knife and a bit of 
 waxed thread. In fact, a great part of the amuse- 
 ment consisted in the making and mending of his 
 own ' grai thing.' Except March brown, green 
 drake, and Mayfly, his flies were mostly known to 
 him by the names of the materials of which they 
 were made, as woodcock and orange, snipe and 
 yellow, swift and purple, etc., or as light and dark 
 blue, the colours indicating what silk was to be 
 used. When I began to fish the use of the running 
 reel was far from being universal. 1 To the top of 
 a two-jointed rod a hair loop was fixed, to which 
 a corresponding loop on the line was attached. 
 The horsehair line, about the same length as the 
 rod, tapered to three hairs, and ended in a loop 
 to which the ' stintin ' or cast of flies, numbering 
 from one to four, was appended, the drop flies 
 being called ' jacks ' and the line itself a ' taime.' 
 When not in use the line was wound round the 
 
 1 He caught his first salmon in 1820, and in his later years used to 
 use light spliced rods up to twenty-two feet in length. I remember 
 his telling me that when fishing with his friend, John Errington, on 
 the North Tyne, he had seen the village schoolmaster at Warden 
 take a number of fine salmon with such a rod as he has described 
 with a hair line and no reel at all, and without losing a fish. A.H.C.
 
 252 TALES OF A GREAT-GRANDFATHER 
 
 hand, and fastened to the rod at a convenient 
 height above the butt-end by means of a piece of 
 stick put through the wound-up line, then behind 
 the rod and through the line again. 
 
 In the long-run the man who believes in his fly 
 and sticks to it is more likely to do well than one 
 who is perpetually changing. It appears, too, 
 that the capture of fish is not absolutely necessary 
 for the enjoyment of angling as a pastime. I 
 have seen men fishing away very contentedly in 
 water so clear that they might have seen that there 
 was not a fish within yards of them. To beginners, 
 I say fish with your heads, don't be in a hurry, 
 keep up your rod top, and never have any slack 
 line in the water. 
 
 J. C. C.
 
 XXV 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY AND OTHER POINTS 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, Almost every point in the life- 
 history of the salmon has been the subject of 
 bitter controversy. The water keeps its secrets 
 well. From the earliest times down to a year or 
 two ago no man knew even where the common eel 
 spawned or whence the swarms of elvers appeared 
 in our rivers. The wildest theories were believed. 
 Eels were supposed to be generated spontaneously 
 out of mud or slime and even to grow out of horse 
 hairs that fell into ponds and ditches. Now at 
 last it has been found that every eel in the re- 
 motest inland pond, and not only in our own 
 country but in France, Holland, and even Russia, 
 has made his way there from breeding-places in 
 the depths of the Atlantic Ocean beyond the 
 five hundred fathom line, and imagination proves 
 almost less strange than fact. 
 
 So of salmon. Not until the experiments of 
 John Shaw of Drumlanrig, in artificially hatching 
 and rearing the ova of salmon, were made known 
 about 1840 was it established with certainty that 
 parr and smolts were both the young of the 
 salmon. Many believed parr to be a different 
 fish, though by rubbing off the silvery scales of 
 
 253
 
 254 NATURAL HISTORY AND OTHER POINTS 
 
 the smolt the ' brandling ' or parr marks, and the 
 red spots too, can plainly be seen beneath them. 
 
 So it was also as to the facts of the migration 
 and the length of life of the salmon, and as to the 
 length and frequency of his visits to fresh water. 
 Systematic markings of fish, both by private 
 persons and lately by the Board of Agriculture 
 and Fisheries, have at last begun to accumulate 
 evidence of a fairly definite nature as to the main 
 facts of the salmon's life-history. We know, for 
 instance, that he does often find his way to strange 
 rivers, at times even to rivers far away from that 
 in which he was born ; that the smolt, after spend- 
 ing one to one and a half or possibly two years in 
 the sea, may return to the river for the first time 
 either as the grilse of one year or as the small 
 spring fish of the next. We have even got on his 
 scales some rough chart of the salmon's life, 
 thanks to the discovery by Mr. H. W. Johnston 
 that the scale under the microscope reveals 
 concentric lines of growth varying in closeness 
 for summer and for winter feeding, and showing 
 plainly the fraying caused after spawning by 
 the great shrinking in bulk undergone by the 
 fish as a kelt. But for the details of all these 
 things you must read some of the latest books 
 dealing with the life-history of the fish. At 
 the present moment Mr. Calderwood's book 1 is 
 
 1 Life of the Salmon (Arnold, 1907). The 'rings' on the scales 
 are said by a recent investigator, Malloch, to run about sixteen to 
 each year.
 
 DO SALMON FEED? 255 
 
 the best that I know. But even he assures us 
 that the eggs of the salmon are laid in a trough 
 and then covered up by the fish, a statement 
 that, I think, is demonstrably erroneous, yet 
 one that still is copied from one book into 
 another without any proper examination into its 
 accuracy. 
 
 Again, ' Do salmon feed in fresh water ? ' 
 What angry quarrels and what oceans of con- 
 troversial ink that simple question has been 
 responsible for ! I am not going to argue it over 
 again. Blue-books have proved as we all 
 thought by scientific evidence that the stomachs 
 of salmon during their stay in fresh water undergo 
 some change whereby they are not in a condition 
 to digest food. After a decent interval other 
 ' scientific gents. ' have then proved equally clearly 
 that the first scientific gents, were all wrong, and 
 have proved that the condition seen in the earlier 
 examinations was due to the very fact that the 
 stomach of the salmon had the power of digestion 
 and had digested itself after its owner's death. 
 In a copy of the Field that is before me now, a 
 gentleman writes from Aboyne on the Dee to say 
 that he has just taken out of the mouth of a clean 
 spring fish of 8 Ibs., killed on a flight of bait hooks, 
 a half-digested salmon parr, three and a half 
 inches in length. I myself have found the 
 mushy head of a small trout stuck on a triangle 
 after landing an autumn salmon on the minnow, 
 and have caught a salmon on a bunch of worms
 
 256 NATURAL HISTORY AND OTHER POINTS 
 
 and found the hook embedded in the actual 
 stomach of the fish. 1 Your great-grandfather, on 
 the I7th April 1843, found three March brown 
 creepers in the stomach of a spring salmon. 
 And many other anglers have at times found food 
 in salmon in fresh water. But still, in almost 
 ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, no food is found 
 inside salmon that have been examined. Why ? 
 Well, they can eject it if they want to do so. 
 My fish caught on the worm had ejected the worms 
 and left the bare hook in his belly. But I do not 
 think that is the whole explanation by any means. 
 The fish are rolling fat, and food is not essential to 
 them. I think that is proved, and it is also proved 
 that they eat very little. But I think it clear 
 that they do eat. 
 
 In 1894 and 1895 two gentlemen, Messrs. Gray 
 and Tosh, examined 1694 salmon from the lower 
 reaches of the Tweed, of which 1442 were 
 caught in the Berwick nets. The examination of 
 the stomachs of so large a number of salmon, as 
 might have been expected, was most instructive, 
 and the results were as follows : 
 
 Of the fish caught in the months of March, 
 April, May, and June, 43%, 37%, 16%, and 13% 
 respectively were found to have food in their 
 stomachs. In the months of July, August, and 
 September the proportion of fish, in the stomachs 
 of which any food was found, fell to 17%, 3*8%, 
 and 2% respectively. These records show pretty 
 
 1 See anfe, page 107.
 
 SEA-LICE 257 
 
 clearly that in the early months of the year and 
 in cold water salmon do commonly contain some 
 food, and that they eat less and less as the summer 
 comes on, until they reach the minimum in July, 
 after which month there is again a trifling increase. 
 These fish, too, were caught at or near the mouth 
 of the river, and in the sea admittedly salmon do 
 eat must eat yet the proportion having any 
 food contained in the stomach diminishes almost 
 to vanishing point by midsummer. The food 
 found in the bellies of these fish was chiefly 
 herrings, with occasional sand-eels, whiting, and 
 haddock, and there was also found in them 
 
 i caterpillar, 
 
 4 feathers, 
 
 i beech leaf, 
 
 and moss, blades of grass, and sedge. 
 
 Another point of controversy is the period 
 during which sea-lice can remain on a salmon in 
 fresh water. 1 In some experiments made by the 
 Fishery Board at Aberdeen with living salmon 
 placed in a sea-tank which was then gradually 
 filled with fresh water, it was found that the lice 
 no longer adhered to the salmon after four or 
 five days in the fresh water. But I am convinced 
 that most people are unaware that there is a 
 common fresh-water parasite much like the sea- 
 louse, which adheres to salmon in summer and 
 autumn in the same way as the sea-louse does, 
 and of course gives no indication as to the length 
 
 R
 
 258 NATURAL HISTORY AND OTHER POINTS 
 
 of time that the salmon has been out of the sea. 
 Some years ago, noticing that these parasites 
 commonly regarded by anglers as sea-lice were 
 to be found in August upon trout as well as upon 
 salmon, I collected a number of them, and by the 
 courtesy of Mr. W. E. Archer, of the Board of 
 Trade and Fisheries, lice taken from yellow trout, 
 from bull-trout, and from salmon were submitted 
 for examination to the official expert, who reported 
 that they were all examples of the same species 
 of parasite, namely, Argulus foliaceus, which is a 
 fresh-water parasite, and only rarely or accident- 
 ally found on fish in the sea. Now this fraudulent 
 little beast is almost the same size as a sea-louse, 
 but looks rather like a translucent greenish wood- 
 louse flattening itself against the body of the 
 salmon, to which it sticks not only by its shape, 
 but by means of a set of concealed feet armed 
 with relatively large, flat suckers. The sea-louse 
 has a waist and a sort of tail is shaped roughly 
 like the figure 8 with a tail. 
 
 When, therefore, you are tempted to assert 
 that some salmon caught forty or fifty miles above 
 the tideway is proved, by the presence of sea- 
 lice, to have been only a day or two ago in the 
 sea, it would be as well to make sure that you 
 are not founding that belief as I am perfectly 
 certain that many people do upon the pre- 
 sence of Argulus foliaceus, which you mistake 
 for Monoculus piscinus. Pretty names, aren't 
 they!
 
 CLEAN OR KELT 259 
 
 I have already told you the way to tell, by its 
 incessant kicking when lifted out of the water, 
 a parr or a smolt from a small trout. It is also 
 a help to the beginner, anxious to do right, to 
 remember that parr or smolts, moreover, are very 
 seldom more than seven inches long. I will try 
 now to give you some idea of how to tell a clean 
 spring fish from a really well-mended kelt. It is 
 a question that has caused agonies of doubt to 
 the inexperienced fisher, or to the fisher who has 
 had but little spring fishing, because if he brings 
 home the wrong fish, besides breaking the law 
 which probably won't trouble him so much 
 he will incur the merciless chaff of his friends. 
 In the first place let me warn you that a silvery 
 brightness is no proof of the fish being a clean fish. 
 On the contrary, a clean fish, though often very 
 brilliant, is not such a dead white as a good kelt. 
 In the water the clean fish flashes rather a golden 
 colour, the kelt a dead or silvery white. But if, 
 when a fish is landed, a rosy pink flush a peach- 
 coloured opalescence can be plainly seen along 
 the belly and sides, that fish is a clean fish. But 
 then that fish will be such a good fish that no doubt 
 is possible on the matter. He will be short and 
 thick and ' as hard as a board/ The real difficulty 
 arises with spring fish that have been a long time 
 up from the sea and have lost something of their 
 condition ; even then they are shapely fish, 
 and that, after all, is the very best test of the 
 question clean or kelt. Thickness is the one
 
 260 NATURAL HISTORY AND OTHER POINTS 
 
 thing that the kelt never has. If a fish looks long 
 and lean, put him back ; he is a kelt, however 
 bright he may be and however clean his gills. 
 But if the gills of a lean fish are infested with that 
 maggot-like parasite (Lerncza salmonis) , then that 
 makes his keltship undeniable ; the great majority 
 of kelts have this horrible parasite devouring the 
 fringes of their gills, or else show the whitish 
 lumps and scars where they have been at work. 
 But the presence of this parasite is not absolute 
 proof that the fish on which they are found is 
 a kelt. I have seen one or two, though rarely, on 
 the gills of undoubted and unquestionable fresh 
 fish. 
 
 A slack vent also indicates that the owner is a 
 kelt ; the vent of a clean-run fish is hard and firm 
 and will not protrude, as does the kelt's, if the 
 stomach near by is pressed in. 
 
 A really good new-run spring fish will generally 
 have all the fins clean and hard, and will show 
 no sore or redness on the lower ray of the tail. 
 A kelt, on the other hand, will generally (but not 
 always) show a frayed and raw tail, and some 
 signs of scraping and redness along the whole 
 under side of the fish. This redness and fraying 
 is a bad sign, but not necessarily fatal. A spring 
 fish that has lain in the river for some time will 
 often show some redness of the lower ray of the 
 tail fin, and may show other abrasions and redness 
 along the belly. 
 
 Of the points I have mentioned no one item is
 
 KELTS 261 
 
 decisive, but the accumulation of several almost 
 always makes it fairly clear what your verdict 
 ought to be upon the question kelt or clean. 
 The signs of the kelt are : 
 
 i. Gill maggots. 
 
 z. Leanness, or rather a want of plumpness, 
 and an apparently large head. 
 
 3. A slack and easily protruded vent. 
 
 4. Frayed tail and fins. 
 
 5. A fishy smell, and scales coming off easily. 
 
 The characteristics of a spring fish are : 
 
 1. Shapely form, in particular depth from back 
 
 to belly. 
 
 2. No fishy smell. 
 
 3. Clean gills. 
 
 4. A hard, firmly closed vent. 
 
 5. Generally dark fins, not abraded, or very 
 
 little abraded, by lying on the river bottom. 
 
 The flesh also is harder and firmer than that of the 
 kelt, but this point is more easily noticed after 
 death, and you must make up your mind promptly 
 whilst the question of life or death hangs in the 
 balance. And when you decide that the fish is a 
 kelt you must not merely take him by the tail and 
 fling him in, neck and crop, unless you have landed 
 him very quickly and have got the hook out 
 instantly and without holding him down. If you 
 have played him for long, and have had to hold 
 him down firmly to get out the hook from his jaws, 
 
 R 2
 
 262 NATURAL HISTORY AND OTHER POINTS 
 
 the fish will be much exhausted, and if you fling 
 him in carelessly will very probably turn over on 
 his back and die. You must slip him gently into 
 the water, and if he does not quickly swim off 
 you must prop him upright in the shallows between 
 two stones in a current and with his head up- 
 stream, and there he will slowly recover his 
 strength. But if a kelt has been much exhausted 
 you will often find him still lying there like a log 
 a quarter or even half an hour after you have 
 left him. Then it is as well not to leave him so, or 
 he may be attacked by foxes, otters, or herons. 
 If you walk up to him he will bolt off into deep 
 water and will be safe, but if he does not bolt, 
 you must leave him. 
 
 A salmon, as you know, has frequently got a 
 great many black spots (or X spots, as they are 
 called, from the shape which they generally take) 
 along its sides, and sometimes it is not very easy 
 for a beginner to tell whether a fish is a salmon or 
 not. But the spots afford one an unfailing guide, 
 and it is this : on the true salmon, and, of course, 
 on the grilse, there are no spots below the medial 
 line except two or three on the gill cover, and 
 occasionally one or two close to the gill cover and 
 just below the line.
 
 XXVI 
 
 THE OLD SALMON ACTS 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, My old master, F. W. Mait- 
 land, the Downing Professor at Cambridge, first 
 showed his brother scholars what masses of general 
 historical knowledge are to be found in the old 
 legal records of our country. The salmon has 
 been held in high honour for centuries. Law- 
 givers and lawyers have watched and fought 
 over him, and in Scotland, more especially, Acts 
 of Parliament have been many for his protection ; 
 and most of these stood unrepealed until our 
 own days. There are, at least, seventeen acts 
 of the Scottish Parliament before the year 1504 
 dealing with the safety of salmon and smolts. 
 Let us look at some of these old acts, and whilst 
 we do it, we shall not be less worthy salmon fishers 
 if we spend a little time in picturing the state of 
 the country when those laws were made. 
 
 The first Scottish act that I know of is one of 
 1318, in the reign of Robert I., the victor of 
 Bannockburn King Robert the Bruce. It pro- 
 vides that all who have cruives or fisheries, dams 
 or mills in tidal waters, shall allow the little salmon 
 or smolts, or fry of other kinds of sea or fresh- 
 water fish (salmunculi vel smolti seu fria alterius 
 
 263
 
 264 THE OLD SALMON ACTS 
 
 generis piscium maris vel aqua dulcis) to ascend 
 and descend by having clear spaces not less than 
 'two thumbs in length and three thumbs in 
 breadth/ and, for penalty, provides that the 
 offender shall have forty days' prison, and shall 
 nevertheless be heavily fined. And it adds : 
 * Et defendit Dominus Rex ne presumat piscari ad 
 salmones, vel salmunculos, temporis prohibitis, 
 super antiquam pcenam,' thus showing that there 
 were still older acts or ordinances forbidding 
 fishing at certain times. 
 
 Doubtless other acts followed, but the next 
 that I have found are two passed by a Parliament 
 at Perth under James i. of Scotland in the year 
 1424. The first of these is entitled ' Of slauchter 
 of salmonde in tyme forbodyne be the law,' and the 
 other ' Of crufis and yaris ' (cruives and yairs, i.e. 
 salmon traps and salmon yards or dams). 1 Three 
 other acts of this year are interesting. Chapter n 
 (of the Record edition) is ' Of playing at the fut 
 ball ' ; chapter 20, ' Of rukis biggande in treis ' 
 (rooks building in trees) ; chapter 21, 'Of mur- 
 byrne ' (moor-burning). Others are against her- 
 
 1 This act of 1424 is as follows : 
 
 ' Item, It is ordanyt that all crufis and yaris set in fresche watteris, 
 quhar the see fillis and ebbis, the quhilke destroyis the fry of all 
 fisches, be destroyit and put away for thre yeris to cum, not gayn- 
 standand ony privileges or fredom geifyn in the contrare, under the 
 payne of IC. And thai that has crufis in fresche watteris that thai 
 ger keip the lawis anentis the Satterday slop (the Saturday slap) and 
 suffer thaime not to stande in forbodyne tyrne under the said payne. 
 And that ilk hek (heck = the space between the bars) of the foresaidis 
 crufis be iii inch wyde, as it is requirit in the auld statutes maid of 
 befor.'
 
 OLD ACTS 265 
 
 etics and Lollards (anentis heretikis and loll- 
 ardis), of stealers of green wood and breakers 
 of orchards, one ' Of stollyn wode fundyn in uthir 
 lordis landis,' one ' Anent stalkeris that slais deir.' 
 Others are against harbourers of thieves, reivers, 
 and rebels, and ' Of wapynschawingis ' weapon- 
 showings, four times each year, says an act of 
 1491, a constantly recurring title telling of the 
 care taken to ensure that all men were properly 
 armed for the defence of their country, a salutary 
 lesson to our less manly days. 
 
 The first act of the year 1426 is one ' Anent the 
 custom of salmondis and uthir fiscfye.' There is one 
 regulating the price of work made by craftsmen, 
 and one ' Of the fee of workmen,' another ' Anent 
 the sawing of quhete (wheat), peis and benis,' and 
 another about the building and repairing of 
 castles and manor places. 
 
 In 1427 comes an act ' Of crufis in watteris ' 
 (cruives), and another ' Anent wylde foulis,' and 
 a few delightful others. Cap. 5, ' That baronis 
 ger seik the quhelpis (go seek the whelps) of the 
 wolfis and sla thame ' ; cap. 10, ' That na man 
 cum to courtis with gaddering ' (gathering, i.e. with 
 a multitude of retainers). Occasionally the re- 
 cords go into Latin, but they soon return to the 
 native tongue. 
 
 In 1429 cap. 22 is ' Anent the act of the fishing of 
 salmonde.' Caps. 8, 9, and 10 are sumptuary 
 laws : ' Of the array of knychtis, lordis, and utheris,' 
 1 Of the array of burgessis and their wyffis,' and ' Of
 
 266 THE OLD SALMON ACTS 
 
 the array of yemen and commonis.' Caps, n, 12, 
 and 14 are ' Anent the maner of grathing (furnish- 
 ing) of gentilmen and utheris for weir (war)/ of 
 yeomen for war, and of burgesses for war. 
 
 In 1431 is an act ' Anent the selling or barteryng 
 of salmonde out of the realme,' then come acts 
 ' Of the persute of thaim that committis slauchter ' 
 (murder), and ' Of the slaar fugitive from the law 
 and proclamation to be maid not to resett (harbour) 
 him.' 
 
 In 1436 is an act ' Tuiching the selling of sal- 
 mond to Inglis men.' Foreign trade was in the 
 air. Another act is ' Anent Inglis clath and uthir 
 gudis,' another ' Of bying of wyne fra Flemyngis 
 of the Dam.' Other acts deal with night-revellers, 
 with holding courts ' for juging of thevis,' and 
 another is about the selling of thieves (as slaves) 
 by lords of regality, sheriffs, or barons. 
 
 In 1438 is an act for arresting and taking surety 
 of rebels or ' unrewlful men,' harboured or holden 
 within castles or fortalices. ' Unruleful men ' 
 is very pretty. In 1449 is an act ' for the keping 
 of trewis (truce) on the bordouris,' and another 
 ' for the away putting of sornaris (a sorner is one 
 who takes food and lodging by force or threats), 
 fenyet fulis, bardis and sic like rynnaris aboute.' 
 The poets of to-day would not like to be classed 
 with these vagrants. The year 1452 seems to have 
 been a year of scarcity. Parliament met in 
 August and passed three acts : ' Anent the thresch- 
 ing out of come/ ' Of halding wittail in gyrnall '
 
 OLD LAWS 267 
 
 (garner), ' Of bying and holding wittail to a 
 derthe.' 
 
 In 1455 an act provides for ' Ane ambaxat to 
 the pape,' and again in 1485 for ' an ambassat to 
 our haly fader the paip.' Trouble was brewing 
 with England. Acts passed in October provide 
 for the punishment of any giving warning of the 
 riding of ' ane host ' into England, and that none 
 pass into England without leave, and that no 
 Englishman come into Scotland ' withoutyn con- 
 duct or assoverance ' (safe-conduct or sureties), 
 then ' That na Scottisman bring in the realme ony 
 Inglismen ' ; and after several warlike statutes 
 comes one, ' Thir saide statutis to be proclamyt at 
 raidis maide in Inglande.' Apparently ' Ing- 
 lande ' retaliated, for the last act of 1455 is for 
 laying of garrisons upon the ' bordours,' and in 
 1456 we get ' Of the supple of the bordouris,' ' Of 
 the defence of the realme,' and then three ' Of 
 cartis of weir,' ( Of the sending to France,' and 
 ' Of the pestilence and governance thereof.' 
 
 In 1457 Parliament is very active. There are 
 acts ' Anent the slauchter of rede fische ' foul 
 salmon, of course, for the very next act is ' Anent 
 ingynis that lot (let or hinder) the smoltis to pas 
 to the se.' Other acts are ' Anent plantacione of 
 woddis and heggis and sawing of broum ' ; ' Anent 
 the sawing of quheit (wheat), peys and benys ' ; 
 ' Anent the destroying of rukis, crawys, and uthir 
 foulis of reif ' (of reiving theft) ; ' For the de- 
 struccione of wolfis' ; ' Anentis the slaaris of haris
 
 268 THE OLD SALMON ACTS 
 
 and destruction^ of cunnyngis ' (coneys) ; and 
 ' That all personis sail cum to courtis in sobyr 
 and quiet maner! 
 
 But it was one thing to pass laws, quite another 
 to have them obeyed. The last effort of this 
 Parliament is an ' Exhortatione be the thre Estatys 
 to our Soverane Lord tuiching the diligent execusione 
 of thir actis and statutis.' 
 
 In 1446 : ' That na Inglis man have benefice 
 within Scotland ' ; ' That na schip be frachtit 
 (freighted) without a charter party ' ; ' Licence to 
 merchandis to sale to the Rochel Burdeus, France 
 and Noroway.' 
 
 Here is a title that is common : ' Of the mone.' 
 In 1467 we get 'Of the cours of the blak mone.' 
 Try to guess it ! You will do it easily when I 
 give you other acts of 1467 : ' Of the cours of the 
 quhite Scottis pennyis,' ' Of the cours of the Inglis 
 penny,' ' Of the cours of the mone of uthir realmes, 
 and of the blak pennyis.' Blak, or blac, mone is, 
 of course, copper money, as against the white or 
 silver penny, and the coin called ' the crounite 
 grote.' The coinage is a source of constant 
 trouble, e.g. in 1485, ' Anent the plakkis and half 
 plakkis ; 1486, ' The crying doune of the new 
 plakkis ' ; 1491, ' Anent them that refuse to tak 
 gold that is crakkit.' 
 
 In 1469 salmon again appear : Cap. 13, ' For 
 the multiplication of fisch, salmon grilses and 
 trowtis.' In 1478, ' For observing of the act anent 
 the cruvis sett in watteris,' and another, ' Of the
 
 THE BARREL OF SALMON 269 
 
 bind of salmonde ' (the bind seems to have been 
 a measure, (?) a barrel, like the English statutory 
 barrel of salmon = 42 gallons). Again in 1487, 
 1488, 1493, 1573, 1584, 1661, and 1696 are acts 
 ' anent the barell of salmonde, the pakking and 
 mesure of the samyn.' 
 
 In 1481 there is more trouble with England. 
 In March and April the Scots Parliament sits, 
 and their acts reflect their mood. ' Of the break- 
 ing of the trewis be the revare (reiver), Edward 
 calland him King of Ingland' ; ' The maner of 
 redynes (readiness) for resisting and aganestanding 
 of the said revare Edward ' ; cap. 7, a grant of 
 600 men of war to be laid in garrison on the 
 borders ; cap. 8, of the places that the said 
 men of war shall be laid in ; cap. 9, ' Of the 
 captanis of the saidis placis ' ; cap. 10, * Of the 
 waigis of the capitanys foresaide ' ; ' Of an am- 
 baxat to the King of France for help and supplied 
 Then from April 1481 until December 1482 is 
 blank. Inter arma silent leges : Dec. 2, 1482, 
 chapter i, ' Of pece and aliance with Ingland.' 
 
 But to return to our salmon and smolts, cruives 
 and yairs. Further acts follow, e.g. 1488 (of 
 cruffis and fisch dammys), 1489 (cruvis and fisch 
 yardis), 1503 (slauchter of red fische), 1535 (off 
 red fische, smoltis and slaying of salmond in for- 
 bodyn tyme, and a second act ' off cruvis and 
 yaris '), 1563 (cruivis and fische dammys), 1567 
 (' anent blak fische, cutting of grene wod and 
 slauchter of smoltis '), 1597 (cruvis and yairis,
 
 270 THE OLD SALMON ACTS 
 
 slauchter of reid fische and smoltis be wandis or 
 utherwyse). Almost identical acts in 1581, in 
 1594, and in 1597 culminate in an act passed in 
 November 1600, declaring ' Slaying of salmond in 
 forbiddin tyme to be ANE CRYME OF THEIFT in tyme 
 cumming.' 
 
 There we will leave them, but I cannot part 
 with these old Scottish acts without giving you 
 one or two more of their jewels. 
 
 ' Anent the dampnable opunyeouns of heresy ' 
 (1525) ; ' Anent them that schutis with gunny s at 
 deir and wylde foulis' (1551) ; 'Anent the chesing 
 of sic ane personage as Robert Hude, Lytill Johne, 
 Abbottis of Unressonn or Quenis of Maij ' (1555). 
 Poor Robin Hood and Little John were out of 
 favour in these stern days. A letter received 
 from Queen Mary in France is said to be from 
 ' Fontane Bellew ' (Fontainebleau). Forestry is 
 encouraged. ' Anentis the planting of woddis, 
 forrestis, orchardis and parkis ' (1555). In order 
 to detect stealing, it is enacted in 1563 ' That 
 beif, muttoun, veill and like bestiall be brocht to 
 mercatis (markets) with hyde, skin and birne.' 
 1661, ' Against sueareing ' ; 1695, ' Against pro- 
 phaneness.' 
 
 Here are two acts with a curiously modern 
 sound : ' Anent the makaris and upsettaris of 
 plackardes and billis ' (1567) ; ' For instructioun of 
 the youth in musik ' (1579). 
 
 In an act of 1592 anent the common good of 
 boroughs, this glorious phrase occurs : ' nocht-
 
 THE ENGLISH ACTS 271 
 
 withstanding of quhatsumevir.' Even Scottish 
 caution could no further go. 
 
 THE OLD ENGLISH ACTS 
 
 In England we cannot show such wealth of 
 statutes, but in 1225, in the ninth year of King 
 Henry in., it was provided that ' all weirs 1 from 
 henceforth shall be utterly put down by Thames 
 and Medway and through all England, but only by 
 the sea coasts.' Then in the famous Statute of 
 Westminster n., in the thirteenth year of King 
 Edward i., that is 1285, is this enactment : 
 
 ' It is provided that the waters of Humber, 
 Owse, 2 Trent, Done, 3 Arre, 4 Derwent, Werfe, 5 
 Nid, Yore, Swale, Tese, Tine, Eden, and all other 
 waters wherein salmons be taken, shall be in 
 defence for taking salmons from the Nativity 
 of our Lady unto St. Martin's Day, and that 
 likewise young salmons shall not be taken nor 
 destroyed by nets, nor by other engines at mill- 
 pools from the midst of April unto the Nativity 
 of St. John Baptist. And in places where such 
 water banks are there shall be assigned over- 
 seers of this statute, which, being sworn, shall 
 
 1 Weirs are Kidelli, in the Latin version, and the word 'kiddle' is 
 still used, meaning stake fences set in the stream for taking salmon, 
 the Scottish yairs or yards. In this English version of the statute, 
 'but' only by the seashore means 'save' only, etc. It is a mere 
 confirmation of section 33 of the Great Charter of our liberties 
 (A.D. 1215), which said this : Omnes kydelli de cetero deponantur 
 penitus de Thamisia et de Medeivaye et per totam Angliam nisi per 
 costeram marts. 
 
 * Ouse. 3 Don. 4 Aire. 5 Wharfe.
 
 272 THE OLD SALMON ACTS 
 
 oftentimes see and inquire of the offenders ; 
 and for the first trespass they shall be punished 
 by burning of their nets and engines, and for the 
 second time they shall have imprisonment for 
 a quarter of a year ; and for the third trespass 
 they shall be imprisoned a whole year ; and as 
 their trespass increaseth so shall the punishment.' 
 
 Packing and barrelling of salmon, as in Scotland, 
 was dealt with by statute. The 22nd Edward iv., 
 c. 2, provides for the true packing and gauging 
 of salmons and eels in butts, barrels, and half- 
 barrels, the butt to contain 84 gallons and the 
 barrel 42 gallons ' well and truly packed ' under 
 pain of vi. s. and viii. d. ' The salmon is to be 
 well and truly packed, that is to say, the great 
 salmon by itself, without meddling of any grills 
 or broken-bellied salmon with the same, and that 
 all small fish, called grills, should be packed by 
 themselves.' 
 
 A statute of n Hen. vii. recites this earlier 
 act, and regulates the payment of the overseers 
 appointed to search the barrels, to enforce the 
 law at the sum of 'one -farthing per barrel and 
 no more.'
 
 XXVII 
 ON TAKING A FISHING 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, If you wish to rent a piece 
 of salmon fishing, it behoves you to be very wary 
 indeed, or you may find that you have wasted 
 not only your money but your holiday as well. 
 I am sorry to say that many attractive offers of 
 salmon fishing are nothing less than swindles, 
 and that rivers are let year after year on records 
 made in some altogether exceptional season. 
 There are records which are carefully built up by 
 incessant prawning and worming throughout the 
 whole season, and there are known prawn fishers 
 who get rivers offered to them at nominal rents, 
 in order that the owners may obtain a record of 
 this sort. Even honest records of catches made 
 by fly fishing may mislead you, unless you ascer- 
 tain that the fish were taken during the very 
 months in which you intend to fish, and that it 
 was not in some altogether abnormal season. On 
 many British rivers the bulk of the fish are taken 
 at the very end of the season ; on most Norwegian 
 rivers at the very beginning, and there is a large 
 class of Scottish rivers in which fish are caught 
 freely in early spring, and again in late autumn, 
 but in which through the summer and early 
 
 s
 
 274 ON TAKING A FISHING 
 
 autumn the fish will not take the smallest notice 
 of a fly or of any bait or lure although fine 
 salmon are splashing about in every pool. Let 
 me remind you of a few points that it is well to 
 consider : 
 
 (1) Go and see the water for yourself, or at 
 
 the very least go and see some trustable 
 man who has fished it. A river in which 
 salmon are actually to be caught may yet 
 be a mere sluggish ditch, fishable only in 
 a wind, and hardly worth fishing even then, 
 or maybe not wide enough to fish with 
 any pleasure. If you cannot see the river, 
 get photographs : they may give you some 
 information ; but it is better in all cases 
 to insist on being put into communication 
 with some one who has fished the river 
 as a tenant. 
 
 (2) Find out how many pools there are that are 
 
 good salmon pools, what length of each 
 of them is usually fished ; and as to each 
 pool, whether it is fished from the bank, 
 or by wading, or from a boat, and if from 
 a boat, whether by casting or by harling. 
 
 (3) See the actual fishing books, over at least 
 
 three or four consecutive seasons preceding 
 the proposed tenancy. See how many 
 salmon are caught with the fly each year 
 over the very period that you are proposing 
 to fish, and whether they are distributed 
 fairly regularly over that time, or are got
 
 GET RECORDS 275 
 
 chiefly in a few lucky periods. If the 
 former is the case, you may feel pretty 
 safe, but if the latter, then it probably 
 means that fish can only be taken after 
 floods, and you will be absolutely lost unless 
 you are lucky enough to get floods also. 
 
 Do not easily accept explanations that 
 there are no regular records. For waters 
 that are let there are records, unless it is 
 known that they could not bear inspection 
 if they existed. Unless you know the man 
 who makes them, be very shy of excuses 
 for poor records, such as that the river 
 was very little fished, or that the anglers 
 who fished the water were unskilful. You 
 will almost always find that your results 
 will be much more like the worst than like 
 the best that they show you. If every- 
 thing is not fully and frankly answered 
 to your satisfaction you should resolutely 
 refuse to go further with the proposal. 
 A bad salmon fishing is a most expensive 
 luxury, and is a daily and hourly dis- 
 appointment. You had much better go 
 off to Norway or to Ireland and get some 
 decent trouting. Salmon-fishing is almost 
 always let on a rental based on the best 
 takes of the best years, and very good 
 salmon years are few and far between. 
 (4) Find out whether previous bags were made 
 by keepers or with their assistance. They
 
 276 ON TAKING A FISHING 
 
 are on the spot early and late, and more 
 than you can 'ever hope to be. A catch 
 made by strangers to the water is much 
 more promising for you than an equal 
 result achieved by resident anglers who 
 know every mood of the river, and almost 
 every stone of each pool in it. 
 
 (5) Ascertain most carefully whether you are 
 
 to have the exclusive right of fishing, and 
 over both sides of all the water. If you 
 are not to get this, then find out who 
 usually fishes any part of it, which side 
 he has, and whether he fishes fly only or 
 what baits he uses, and to what extent 
 he and his guests usually fish. Many a 
 good stretch of water is rendered almost 
 useless to you by having a persistent 
 prawner constantly fishing up and down 
 the opposite bank. Even minnow fishing 
 can be very annoying to a neighbour, 
 though I have been guilty of that myself. 
 You can never have the pleasure of 
 leaving a pool quiet if some one else has 
 the right to fish it when he chooses. And 
 find out whether your vis-h-vis uses a boat 
 or no upon your pools. 
 
 (6) It is just as well to have it made quite clear 
 
 beforehand who is to pay the rates and 
 taxes on the fishing rent the rates often 
 come as an unpleasant surprise to the 
 fishing tenant.
 
 INQUIRE LOCALLY 277 
 
 (7) Of course such things as accommodation, 
 boatmen, if needed, means of getting to and 
 from the water, and distance of available 
 shops for supplies must be considered ; 
 and they will occur to any one. 
 
 If you are going to have a long lease consult 
 your lawyers, and see that you have in it the 
 right to cut, or to require to be cut, willows, alders, 
 and other bushes, which may interfere with the 
 fishing. An alder or a willow which is a trifle 
 whilst you can pass your rod over it, may become 
 an obstacle of the most annoying kind in a year 
 or two. 
 
 Other minor annoyances there are that local 
 inquiry may reveal. You can inquire as to bad 
 or slippery wading, muddy bottoms, and frequency 
 of droughts (always find out whether the river 
 in dry weather shrinks so much as to be hardly 
 worth fishing ; and when you go to see a river 
 inquire carefully what is its normal height). A 
 bull or even a lot of cattle depastured beside 
 your best pools may be a source of intense annoy- 
 ance. Bulls are queer-tempered beasts, especially 
 with persons who fear them, and with strangers 
 strangely dressed. However, if you engage a 
 rustic with a stout cudgel, he will look after the 
 bull and take care of your tackle on the bank 
 at the same time. 
 
 S2
 
 XXVIII 
 
 A POSTSCRIPT 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, There are a few miscellaneous 
 hints that I should like to give you, though most 
 of them are not connected with salmon fishing. 
 
 The first one, however, is, or was so, for on cold 
 days on getting home from the river we used 
 always to find ready for us in the fender a jug of 
 the most excellent brew that I have ever tasted 
 a hot mulled claret, and this is Falshaw's receipt 
 for it : 
 
 Take a shred of lemon rind, three cloves and 
 two egg-cupfuls of water, and simmer these 
 together for a few minutes. Then add a pint of 
 claret and warm until it is nearly boiling. Add 
 four to five lumps of sugar and, if you wish, two 
 to three teaspoonfuls of cherry brandy, and serve 
 in a small jug with claret glasses. 
 
 It may be worth while on a fishing excursion 
 to know how to make and bake decent bread. 
 Mr. E. B. Kennedy, in his delightful book, Thirty 
 Seasons in Scandinavia, tells you how to do it. 1 
 
 1 His receipt is this : Take i Ib. wholemeal flour, rub into it a 
 pat of butter, three or more teaspoons of Yeatman's baking powder 
 (or yeast, if you can get it), add thin skimmed milk to make all con- 
 sistent, mix quickly, and bake forty minutes in a quick oven. In 
 Norway, as he tells you, wholemeal flour is sold as ' Graham's hvid 
 mei: 
 
 278
 
 FERRETING 279 
 
 With a loaf of fresh bread, a lump of butter 
 (which can be pressed into a hole cut in the side 
 of the loaf), and either a tin of sardines or a lump 
 of cheese, any keen fisher may in the most out-of- 
 the-way place have a luncheon fit for a king 
 too good, I think, for most of them. 
 
 All boys love ferreting. Now, I have known 
 the ferrets to lie up in the holes, and cause a 
 trifling wait of an hour or two before they could 
 be got out again ; indeed, most people think that 
 ferreting consists chiefly in waiting with frozen 
 feet for the ferrets to come out. Generally the 
 delay is caused by one or more failures to pick 
 up the active little wretches when they come out 
 to sniff the fresh air and to see, I suppose, whether 
 you have gone home, before returning to worry 
 their rabbit. Every ineffectual grab made at the 
 neck of a ferret makes it more wild and more 
 wary. If you use a bit of stout cord about 
 eighteen inches long you may save yourselves all 
 this trouble. Make a small loop at the end of 
 the string ; put a slip knot round the ferret's 
 neck ; draw it close and then make it fast and 
 ' non-slip ' by putting the loose end through the 
 string collar that you have thus made and taking 
 a half-hitch. Then the loose end, about a foot 
 long, is towed about by the ferret as he works the 
 holes, and when he appears at the entrance, and 
 you come near to pick him up, he usually backs 
 a little way down the hole, leaving the string now 
 lying in front of him. You have only to lay hold
 
 280 A POSTSCRIPT 
 
 of the string and lift him out at once. Not only 
 does this save all trouble in picking up your ferrets, 
 but they soon become very tame and very easy to 
 handle when there is no longer any snatching at 
 their necks as they dodge back into the hole. 
 
 Another tip, now, to clean your gun quickly 
 and easily. Take the 'jag' of your cleaning rod, 
 or take any other straight rod, and round the 
 head of it wind and tie some string so as to make 
 a small lump. Then keep three or four bits of 
 oily flannel about four or five inches square 
 one always for the first wipe through, one or two 
 for a further polish, and one well oiled for a last rub. 
 You will only have to place a square of flannel 
 on the lump at the end of your rod and you can 
 not only push it through the barrel, but the string 
 lump enables you to pull it back again, and to push 
 and pull as often as you like. You can, indeed, 
 rub the barrels quite warm in this way, and you 
 can clean a gun in a couple of minutes, the same 
 set of rags serving for dozens of cleanings. 
 
 Another tip to destroy rats which are about 
 the worst enemies of game eggs and chicks is 
 this. Carry an old jam-pot or a jar full of bisul- 
 phide of carbon, and, with a stick, dip a lump of 
 rag, cotton wool, or waste of any sort into the 
 liquid and push it as far as you can down each rat 
 hole, and at once bung up the hole with earth. 
 Every rat will be ' scumfished/ Bisulphide of 
 carbon is very evil-smelling and very inflammable, 
 so you must keep it well away from your face and
 
 ODDS AND ENDS 281 
 
 from any light, but with ordinary care it is a 
 perfectly safe thing to handle. Of course it will 
 do only for rat holes in the open, in banks or 
 hedges, and so on ; in buildings the fumes are not 
 in a sufficiently confined space to stifle the rats, 
 even if you don't mind killing them there. And I 
 need hardly add that rabbits in your young planta- 
 tions can be exterminated in the same way. 
 
 To taint out rabbits from their burrows for 
 shooting days, a certain stinking oil, sold under the 
 names of ' oil of hartshorn/ ' Dippel's oil/ ' animal 
 oil/ or ' foxes oil/ is far the best thing to use, and 
 there is no need to buy the same thing under a 
 fancy name and at a fancy price to do the same 
 work. 
 
 Also this oil painted on the stems of your 
 young trees, or put on bits of rough string or 
 sacking tied round the trees, will prevent rabbits 
 from barking those trees for a whole winter.
 
 XXIX 
 
 SOME BOOKS ON FISHING 
 
 MY DEAR BOYS, As I have said, books on angling 
 are almost innumerable. Walton's book, pub- 
 lished in 1653, is still the freshest and the most 
 delightful of them all. But what he wrote about 
 was chiefly bait fishing, and nothing that he says 
 will help you at all in fishing for salmon or trout. 
 But you must read him, though his book appeals 
 less strongly to the keenness of boyhood than it 
 does to older fishers, to those who are willing not 
 to hurry, who can lay down their rod on a May 
 morning the better to feel the mere pleasure of being 
 alive, and who can enjoy to the full the temper 
 of a writer ' whose ways are ways of pleasantness 
 and all his paths are peace/ One, Colonel Venables, 
 who, in 1662, wrote a book called The Experienced 
 Angler, knew a great deal about fly fishing for 
 both trout and salmon, and Charles Cotton, 
 Walton's friend, who wrote the latter part of the 
 Complete Angler, was a real trout fisher in the 
 sense we now understand fly fishing, and he was a 
 scholar, who could write, too, about other things 
 than fishing. What do you think of these few 
 lines from some of his verses, as a picture of the
 
 ANGLING BOOKS 283 
 
 long shadows of the setting sun on his Derbyshire 
 hills ? 
 
 * A very little, little flock 
 Shades thrice the ground that it would stock, 
 Whilst the small stripling following them 
 Appears a mighty Polypheme.' 
 
 But the number of good modern books upon fishing 
 is great, and I can only tell you of a few of them. 
 Of Scrope's book, Days and Nights of Salmon 
 Fishing, I have already spoken. It tells you of 
 the lawless days in the early part of the nineteenth 
 century before the present Salmon Acts, when 
 fishers were few and fishing cheap, and when you 
 fished fairly in good water and poached foully 
 with torch and spear, when the river fell and the 
 fish would not take the fly to your satisfaction. 
 Henderson's book, My Life as an Angler, published 
 in 1879, is a most interesting account of Tweedside 
 salmon fishing and of north-country angling 
 generally, and to you, my boys, I would commend 
 what is said about your great-grandfather at 
 page 22, and also the absolutely convincing and 
 detailed account of the extraordinary increase of 
 heavy fish in the Tweed which followed the 
 passing of the Acts which protected the kelts 
 from capture. The author was one of a party of 
 Durham anglers who fished the Tweed for about 
 thirty years, from 1840 onwards, and two of the 
 best-known salmon flies took their names from 
 them, the Silver Wilkinson and the Durham 
 Ranger. At page 164 also he tells you how to
 
 284 SOME BOOKS ON FISHING 
 
 cook a trout by wrapping it in five or six folds 
 of wet paper and thrusting it amongst the ashes 
 of a wood fire. 
 
 Another really good book is Stoddart's Angler's 
 Companion to the Rivers and Lochs of Scotland 
 (1847) Stoddart's book expresses, and to my mind 
 perfectly, the very best practice of north-country 
 fishing, though he devotes more attention to trout 
 than to salmon. It is a delightful book, though 
 marred by his savage and insolent attacks on Shaw 
 of Drumlanrig, the true pioneer of all accurate 
 knowledge of the life-history of the salmon. 
 Another book that you should most certainly read 
 is The Angler and the Loop Rod, a book written 
 in 1885 by an old Scottish cobbler named David 
 Webster, who every summer used to fish the Clyde 
 and the Tweed for his living, and in the pages of 
 whose book there is more sound, practical advice 
 for beginners than in any other book that I know. 
 But the larger part of his book also is devoted 
 to trout fishing. 
 
 Amongst the very recent books I will pick out 
 only two or three. E. B. Kennedy's Thirty 
 Seasons in Scandinavia ; Mr. Gathorne-Hardy's 
 little book on Salmon in the ' Fur, Feather, and 
 Fin ' series of sporting books, and Sir Edward 
 Grey's book on Fly Fishing. Each of them will 
 give you much pleasure, but of the last I cannot 
 help saying that it is the very best book without 
 any exception whatever upon fishing as practised 
 now. But still the book is a very short one, and
 
 FAREWELL 285 
 
 the author has spared only about forty pages to 
 salmon fishing. 
 
 These letters of yours are not intended to 
 compete or to compare with any of those books. 
 They are intended to teach two boys salmon 
 fishing so far as that may be taught with a pen, 
 for, since we have removed into the county of 
 Sussex, I may not be able to teach you with a rod. 
 Well, they are done, and for the present, at any 
 rate, my salmon fishing is done, and, like Robert 
 Roxby, the Northumbrian fishing poet, at the 
 end of his life describing what he believed was to 
 be his last day's trouting on his beloved North 
 Tyne, I say : 
 
 ' And now I '11 reel my tackle up, 
 
 The fisher's craft resign, 
 And bid farewell to rod and reel, 
 To hackle, hook, and line.'
 
 INDEX 
 
 ALDER LEAF, to remove glitter 
 
 of gut, 207. 
 Alevins, appearance of, 239-40. 
 
 rearing, 241. 
 Autumn fishing, a week-end in 
 
 October, 77-87. 
 
 BELT round waders, wearing, 
 194-5. 
 
 swimming with, 195. 
 Best days, 114-25. 
 Best fish, 150-7. 
 Biology of salmon egg, 239. 
 Books on fishing 
 
 Calderwood, 254. 
 
 Gathorne- Hardy, 209, 284. 
 
 Grey, Sir Edward, 284. 
 
 Henderson, 108, 283. 
 
 Hodgson, 35. 
 
 Kennedy, 282, 284. 
 
 Kirkbride, 208. 
 
 Scrope, 61, 283. 
 
 Stoddart, 284. 
 
 Venables, 282. 
 
 Walton and Cotton, 282. 
 
 Webster, David, 103, 284. 
 
 Young, Andrew, 51. 
 Bread, how to make, 278. 
 Brogues, 194. 
 
 nails for, and iron foot, 194. 
 Bull-trout, 245, 246. 
 
 CARRYING SALMON, in 'frail,' 206. 
 
 in string loop, 198. 
 Casting, 12. 
 
 the detail of, 13. 
 
 286 
 
 Casting (contd.} 
 
 secret of good casting, 15. 
 
 casting against wind, 17. 
 
 where to cast, 17. 
 
 last cast of the season, 87. 
 Celluloid varnish, 167-8. 
 Clean or kelt, 259-62. 
 Clothing, socks, quiet colours, 
 
 hat, 199. 
 
 Cooking trout in ashes, 284. 
 Cramp, 193. 
 
 DISTURBING FISH, 21. 
 EELS SPAWNING, 253. 
 
 FEATHERS, fresh, best for flies, 
 
 173- 
 Feeding, salmon, in river, 255-7. 
 
 scientific theories about, 255. 
 Fiddle-string, loops of, on fly, 167, 
 
 179, 184. 
 Flies, 8, 34-39- 
 
 a select few, 37. 
 
 the claret, 64. 
 
 the white and silver, 84. 
 
 big flies after flood, 124 ; and 
 
 at evening, 161. 
 Floating fish home, 121. 
 Fly tying, 166-76. 
 Foam, 1 60. 
 
 Forty-pounder, a, 156. 
 Foul hooked fish, 117, 147, 203. 
 Frail, to carry fish, 206. 
 
 GAFFING, 50. 
 Gib, 211, 231.
 
 INDEX 
 
 287 
 
 Gill-maggots, 260. 
 Great-grandfather, his notes, 229. 
 Gut, 8, 10, 207. 
 
 fine gut, 32. 
 
 Japanese gut, 191 n. 
 
 testing, 10. 
 
 old gut, 64. 
 
 HACKLE, how to wind and tie on, 
 
 171. 
 
 Hatching, 237. 
 Holding rod ' short,' 23. 
 Hold line, how to, 44. 
 Home, Lord, his great day in 
 
 1795. 124. 
 
 Hooking fish, fourteen consecu- 
 tive rises, 25. 
 
 Hooks, keeping sharp, 44, 204. 
 double, 205. 
 eyed, 206. 
 
 whetstone for hooks (called 
 carver's slips), 205. 
 
 JOINTS, mutton fat for, 202. 
 to free sticking joints, the 
 
 Spanish windlass, 202. 
 a rough and ready vice for, 
 203. 
 
 KELT, how to tell a, 259-62. 
 Knots, 177-91. 
 
 figure of eight knot, 179-82. 
 
 for gut, to metal eyes, 183. 
 
 salmon gut knot, 185-91. 
 
 LAST day of a season, 145-9. 
 Lines, 9, 10, 204. 
 
 light, 32. 
 
 spinning, trout lines for, 93-4. 
 Loops on line and gut, 177, 179. 
 
 of fiddle-string on fly, 167, 179. 
 Lost fish, 49. 
 
 recovering, 67, 71. 
 Low water, 18, 164. 
 
 MAORI CHIEF and BISHOP SEL 
 WYN, 129. 
 
 Maxims, 22, 38. 
 Minnow fishing, 88-105. 
 
 in big dark waters, 90. 
 
 in frost, 91. 
 
 minnow tackles, 101-4. 
 
 casting natural minnow on fly 
 
 rod, 102. 
 Minnows, phantom, 95-7. 
 
 leading, 96. 
 Muggy weather, bad, 160. 
 Mulled claret, good, 278. 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY, 253-63. 
 'Necked' gut, 10, 178. 
 Netting salmon, 137, 235-6. 
 Night fishing, 161. 
 Norway and the Norwegians, 128. 
 
 OTTERS, 126, 247-8. 
 killing salmon, 131-3. 
 fishing, 133-4. 
 catching an otter, 135. 
 
 PAIN, sense of, in fish, 55-62. 
 Patience, 3, 76. 
 Phantom minnows, 95-7. 
 Piano wire, 98. 
 Playing fish, 46-50. 
 Poachers, 139. 
 Pollution, 137. 
 Pricked fish, 38. 
 
 QUIET RUNS, 163. 
 
 RAIN, 159. 
 Redds, 212, 221. 
 Reels, 9, 203. 
 
 casting reels, 92. 
 
 overrunning, 93. 
 
 catching salmon without a reel, 
 
 251 n. 
 Resting, salmon resting on 
 
 bottom, 219. 
 Rifle bullet, 141. 
 Rising water, 159-60, 196. 
 Rods, 6, 9, 201. 
 
 not whippy, for beginners, 201. 
 spinning rods, 92.,
 
 288 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Roe, 213. 
 
 SALMON ACTS, old English, 
 
 271. 
 
 Salmon Acts, old Scottish, 262. 
 Scales of salmon, rings on, 254. 
 Sea-lice, 257-8. 
 Sea-trout, 245. 
 
 a 38 Ib. sea-trout, 250. 
 Seagulls, 143, 248. 
 Seals, 137, 247. 
 
 Shaw of Drumlanrig, 253, 284. 
 Smolts, 229, 243, 254. 
 Snow, 69. 
 Spawning, 208-29, 2 33~5- 
 
 little fighting or jealousy, 223, 
 
 226. 
 Spots on salmon, few, if any, 
 
 below lateral line, 262. 
 Spring fishing, 63-76. 
 Spring fish in October, a, 151. 
 Striking the fish, 40-5. 
 Styles of fishing, 28. 
 Sudden floods, 159, 196. 
 Sulking, 47, 57, 58. 
 Sunshine, 158-9. 
 Swimming in waders, 195. 
 Swirling pools, 18. 
 
 TACKLE found on fish, 49, 61. 
 
 ancient tackle, 251. 
 Taking a fishing, 273-8. 
 Taut line, in. 
 
 Testing, the gut, 10 ; the line, 94. 
 Tinsel, 169. 
 
 winding for body of fly, 170. 
 
 VARNISH, celluloid, 167. 
 
 for flies, 168-9. 
 
 Vulcanising acid for mending 
 waders, 197. 
 
 WADERS, care in turning and 
 drying, 198. 
 
 repairing, 197. 
 Wading too near the fish, 21. 
 
 without waders, 192. 
 
 in swift or rising water, 195-6. 
 Wasps, salmon taking, 59. 
 Where to fish in various states of 
 
 water, 164-5. 
 Winging flies, 172-3. 
 Wire; piano wire, 98-100; lead 
 
 wire, 96. 
 Worming, 105. 
 
 salmon swallowing worms, 107. 
 Wounded fish, 83, 137, 157. 
 
 Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers tc His Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Press
 
 000 049 045