I30 SHOOTING AND SALMON FISHING 



it has more than doubled bags, has raised the rental value of 

 the Dee fishings considerably. When told that it is unsports- 

 manlike to use it, I reply to my abuser that if he wishes to be 

 consistent he has no right to use a breechloader, but should 

 adhere to flint and steel, or the bow and arrow. 



" My experience is that it is taken best in a big clear water, 

 and in cold weather. The Malloch reel has simplified the 

 casting for beginners ; before that reel came out, the casting 

 of thirty yards from the hand was an art not easily acquired, 

 and many gave it up in disgust in consequence, but any muff 

 can now fish the minnow tolerably with the Malloch reel. 



" There is a general idea that it ruins a pool for anything 

 else, but that is not at all the case, though I would not care 

 to fish a pool with either fly or minnow after prawn or worm. 

 They sometimes take it well in October, though not to such 

 a certainty as in spring, for owing to the water being warmer 

 the fly is taken freely in that month, and when they do that 

 I prefer it, although one loses many more fish." 



George Whitehead and his eldest son had an extraordinary 

 good day at Glen Tana, in May, 1888, on the beats above 

 Dinnet Bridge. He writes me : — 



" I was on the south side, and my son on the north ; and 

 at lunch time he had killed nine with the fly, and I had only 

 seven with the minnow. After that I got eleven more, and 

 he did not get another — total twenty-seven for the day. It 

 may interest you to know that about twenty years ago, while 

 trailing for pollack, I hooked and landed a salmon of eleven 

 pounds, and the nearest rivers were the Humber and the Esk, 

 the former over forty miles off, and the latter over thirty." 



The late Sir William Cunliffe Brooks' famous fisherman, 

 " Boatie " Stevens, has equalled these performances with the fly 

 alone, and as an all-round caster of the fly is the best man I 

 have ever come across, for he is equally good at overhead or 

 underhand casting. 



The prawn is fished in much the same way as the minnow, 



