Fishing the Pool 109 



Another instance occurred on a piece of water 

 we call the Brook Pool, very similar in character 

 to that mentioned above, where I was fishing one 

 side and a friend the other. I had on a No. 4 

 Dun Wing fly, with which I hooked a fish almost 

 at once. My friend, who was very near me, both 

 of us casting toward the centre of the river, where 

 the fish were lying, tried several kinds of small 

 flies without hooking a salmon, though he had 

 one or two very faint rises. He would not take 

 a Dun Wing from me until after I had landed 

 three large fish. Then he came over and bor- 

 rowed one which the salmon began taking at 

 once, and we carried home eight between us. 

 The proof was not quite so absolute as in the 

 case first mentioned, but still convincing as to 

 the tastes of the fish that morning. The theory 

 held by some that salmon are able to distinguish 

 more than the general effect, color, and size in 

 flies, or that they can tell the difference, for in- 

 stance, between a Silver Doctor and a Dusty 

 Miller, is, I think, untenable. Although it proves 

 nothing as regards any theory of colors, it may 

 not be out of place to give the following state- 

 ment of the different patterns of flies on which 

 salmon were killed on water I fished in 1896, and 



