SALMON-FISHING 351 



the fish. Notwithstanding the minute directions given for 

 tying any particular fly, it must not be inferred that an imita- 

 tion that lacks some of the tints, will not take fish. The mam 

 tiling is to have the prevailing colors as near those of the fly 

 described as possible ; if there is a slight difference in regard 

 to the feathers that compose the wings or tail, when the 

 exact feather cannot be had, it may still be a killing fly on 

 the same kind of water, and on the same kind of a day, that 

 the original is. Fresh-run Salmon are not over nice, and if 

 the colors are at all suitable to the water, they will lay hold ; 

 as to a certain fly being the fly for any water, to the exclu- 

 sion of all others, it is sheer humbug. The first Salmon I ever 

 killed was on a fly I tied before leaving home, from some 

 idea I had of the water I was to fish, and from a general 

 knowledge of the proper colors for Trout-flies. It was not 

 intended as an imitation of any I had seen or read a descrip- 

 tion of; and I continued to tie my own flies, and killed 

 Salmon with them all summer, being guided in selecting the 

 colors by the state of the water and the day, omitting the 

 unimportant detail of a tag or feelers, and frequently not 

 putting on a head when indolent, or pushed for time. 



Very few of the flies imported from England and Ireland 

 are suitable for the rivers of New Brunswick, being generally 

 too large and showy for those clear waters. The gaudy Irish 

 flies tied for the Shannon would frighten the Salmon on this 

 side of the Atlantic, while others would not be noticed by 

 them. The profuse variety of beautiful but useless flies 

 imposed on some of our verdant countrymen, with full 

 pockets, by London and Dublin tackle-makers, is astonishing. 

 An accomplished Salmon-fisher of St. John, with whom I 

 had the pleasure of fishing for two weeks last summer, had 

 only two standard flies for the Mirimichi and Nipissiguit ; 

 one the " Blue-and-brown," the other the "Silver-gray ;" — the 



