SALMON FISHING 129 



to the Dee, and on this head he writes me the following- 

 characteristic letter : — 



"As to the 'Yorkshire Grey,' I really believe I was 

 practically the originator of its use for salmon. Twenty-five 

 years ago, when fishing for trout with natural minnow on fine 

 gut, with thirty yards of line, I found I was continually hook- 

 ing and generally getting broken by salmon, and I set to work 

 to develop appliances to prevent the latter casualty, little think- 

 ing it would turn out the success it has become. The first 

 time I went to the Dee, viz. to Ballater, some sixteen years 

 ago, I took with me, simply on spec, a can of some fifty 

 minnows. This was on March 31st. The gillies laughed me 

 to scorn ! They had never heard of such a thing, but said 

 they had known kelts hooked with a phantom in water too 

 big and thick for a fly. In low, clear water, with twenty 

 degrees of frost every night, I soon found that, as usual, the 

 local artists did not know everything, and pulled out two or 

 three daily with the ' Grey Eagle,' to their astonishment. 



" Patterns of my tackle were begged from me by numbers 

 of people. George Whitehead got it from me that year at 

 Ballater, and took it to Aboyne, and then it spread, till it is 

 universally used now, not only on the Dee, but on many other 

 rivers. 



" I have been cursed and called a poacher, etc., etc., but I 

 have become callous, and am sure it was envy of my success, 

 and nothing else, that prompted such feelings. I used in 

 those days to fish every pool first with a fly, generally with 

 two different flies, and then with the minnow, often getting one 

 to six fish out of a pool in which I had had no rise to a fly. 

 I am speaking of April, which, in my opinion, is the worst fly 

 month on the Dee, though there are the most fish. I have 

 thrice killed sixteen in a day on the Dee, and one year at 

 Ballater — the last I was there, I think 1882 — I got 133 fish 

 in the month of April, and thirty-eight in the first three days, 

 all, or nearly all, with minnow. I consider that the fact that 

 s 



