io8 SHOOTING AND SALMON FISHING 



If an attempt be made to keep level with a mad fish making 

 a rush down white water, when the footing on the bank is 

 very bad, it is nearly certain the rod point will be lowered, 

 which is usually the signal for good-bye. 



An angler should remember that in pools on which a 

 boat is used that, when watching it from the opposite bank, 

 it will always look to be more than fairly half way across 

 the stream ; a knowledge of this will do away with many 

 uncharitable feelings, and save even downright wrangles. It 

 is, of course, annoying to see a boat appear to come more 

 than fairly across the stream, to fish one's favourite catch, but 

 the opposite neighbour may have been forbidden to wade, 

 or perhaps the pool can be reached in no other way. Under 

 such circumstances make the best of the matter, for if the 

 banks were changed the chances are the grumbler himself 

 would do precisely the same thing. If the boat be rowed, 

 it does less harm than if a sting be used, which causes greater 

 disturbance by the noise it makes in striking the bed of the 

 river; but in either case, if there be plenty of fish, a pool 

 that has been " boated " can be cast with confidence half an 

 hour afterwards. Indeed, we have come down our side of 

 a pool immediately behind a boat fishing from the opposite 

 bank, and have hooked fish so close to it that the party 

 afloat have had to pull out of the way to let us down. In 

 some fisheries the march will begin or end in the middle 

 of a pool, a matter that is often productive of unfriendliness 

 between two anglers, both good fellows who should be the 

 best of friends. The old-fashioned plan was for the owner 

 of the upper part of the pool to come to the march, when 

 he fished over into the next water as far as he could cast. 

 On many rivers this has been altered to the fairer method 

 of placing a stake twenty-five yards above the actual boundary, 

 below which mark the angler on the upper water is in honour 

 bound not to put his feet. 



There are two sorts of very bad fishing neighbours. The 



