30 



ANGLING IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



his tastes in the item of food, if any, are discussed. 

 Fishing men are never tired of propounding, as a sort of 

 conundrum, the question, " Why do sahnon take a fly ? " 

 And after long years echo answers, " Why ? " Next comes 

 the unpleasant subject of Saprolcgnia ferax, and then the 

 conversation surely drifts down to those lower proprietors 

 who are, in their greed, ruining all the honest sport. But 

 the talk is most animated when out-of-the-way theories 

 are advanced about flies. All anglers who are worthy of 

 the name have some fancy or other about tackle. Fre- 

 quently it is a " fad " rather than a well-grounded fancy, 

 and to this all fly-fishers are very prone. The salmon-fly, 

 being not a fly, in the sense that a March brown or Alder 

 is an imitation of a natural insect, admits only of limited 

 debate. There remains still, however, for settlement, the 

 matter of gafl" versus net, and when all else fails, old battles 

 have to be fought over again with mighty fish, and new 

 laments uttered over that phenomenal salmon that sulked 

 at the bottom of the pool, and sawed away against the 

 ledge of rock until the gut parted. 



The salmon angler in action should be a strong, patient 

 man, knowing the water he works, and the tricks and 

 natural propensities of the game he attacks. But the pro- 

 cess does not, in any of its stages, require such delicate 

 manipulation as the trout angler must exercise. When you 

 begin to handle the 1 8-foot rod, and run the heavy eight- 

 plaited line through the rings, and affix the strong gut cast, 

 with its gaudy Parson or Jock Scott, it may dawn upon 

 the beginner, who has been accustomed to brown trout 

 angling only, that salmon fishing, though an art, is scarcely 

 a fine art. The downward casts, and the rough jerking 

 movement of the fly worked through the water, do not 

 tend to remove this impression from the mind of the angler 



