82 NOTES FOR THE 



you generally get two or three half-pounders 

 sometimes large fish and the expectation 

 keeps up the sport. In the spring, till the 

 floods of April or May carry them away, you 

 get ahundance of the young smelt or salmon, 

 weighing three or four ounces, which are not 

 bad sport, and most delicious eating far supe- 

 rior to trout. In the autumn, hy putting a 

 sewin fly on for your end fly, you sometimes 

 pick up two or three, which afford the finest 

 sport of all (except a salmon), and wonderfully 

 add to the weight of your basket. The only 

 drawback to the fly-fisher in the Dee, are the 

 long pools in some parts of its course, which ! 

 often oblige you to walk half a mile between 

 each stream without throwing a fly, and fatigue 

 any except a professed pedestrian. These pools 

 are overhung with wood, very picturesque, but 

 completely inaccessible to the fly-fisher, except 

 with a coracle, which it requires great skill to 

 manage, and which indeed a man ought to be 

 an expert swimmer ever to take a seat in.* 



* In the immediate neighbourhood of Llangollen 

 are several brooks, in which, after rain, good sport 

 may be had. The chief of these is the Ceirioge ; 

 and a very good two or three days' fishing may be 

 had by the following route: Take the mountain 

 road from Llangollen to Glyn (about two miles), 

 fish up the Ceirioge to Llauarmon (eight miles), walk 



