216 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 
as if he had caught five, and this takes no account of the 
benefit he derives from hours of healthy exercise in the 
open air. 
The literature of salmon-fishing is so profuse, much of it 
such excellent reading, that it would be futile to attempt more 
than a recapitulation of the principal methods employed and the 
requisite conditions of weather and water. 
First, as to the season. Spring is the time when salmon- 
fishing is at its prime. The fish are then in lustiest condition 
and most brilliant in appearance. Their ovaries have not begun 
to drain the fulness of the muscular system; every ounce of 
energy can be applied by the salmon to a fight for life and 
liberty ; and, as a rule, salmon come more readily to the lure 
in the early months than at any other season of the year. The 
condition of water which enables the angler to pronounce a 
river in “good order” is when it is full, but not flooded. 
The most artistic method of angling for salmon is with the 
artificial fly ; it is also the favourite with anglers, and reckoned 
the most sportsmanlike. But it is to be noted that it is only 
by courtesy that the arrangement of fur, feather, silk, and tinsel 
presented to the fish can be called a “fly.” Salmon do not feed 
on flies ;* moreover, as has been explained above, they do not 
feed at all, in the sense of taking nourishment, while in fresh 
water ; although the predaceous instinct, curiosity, irritation, 
and perhaps occasional spasms of appetite, prompt them to 
seize and even to swallow lifelike moving objects. The 
salmon-fly, indeed, is a purely arbitrary evolution of the 
fisherman’s fancy; how slender is its resemblance to a 
natural fly may be realised on examining the trays in any 
fishing-tackle shop. These baits are classed as flies, and their 
exhibition is termed fly-fishing, by analogy with trout-flies 
and fly-fishing, wherein the intention is to simulate natural 
insects. 
* Nevertheless, when March browns come thickly on the water in 
spring, salmon may occasionally be seen rising freely at them. 
