76 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 



are casual visitors never to be calculated upon. Late in the 

 season the brooks swarm with salmon fry which worry the 

 fisherman by their voracity. There are, or might be, plenty 

 of salmon in the Devonshire rivers. At Tavistock I saw a 

 report just sent in from the lower waters of the Tavy and 

 Tamar setting forth that salmon and trout had never been 

 seen in more abundance than during that season (1874), but 

 that the mines were playing havoc with the water. 



The Dartmoor streams should always be fished upwards. 

 Their direction being, roughly speaking, from north to 

 south, this course is the easiest as well as the best to pursue 

 when the wind sits in the right quarter for piscatorial pur- 

 suits. It will save time and trouble to lay in a stock of flies 

 at Plymouth or Tavistock. If one could make sure of 

 finding that infallible native who generally lurks somewhere 

 near the waterside, and who manufactures flies more killing 

 and more natural than the living insect, he is the man to buy 

 from ; but it may happen that the worthy is not to be found, 

 and life is too short to waste a day in unearthing him while 

 the fish are eagerly rising. The flies at both Tavistock and 

 Plymouth are excellent, and the shopkeepers thoroughly 

 understand Dartmoor, and will give the customer honest 

 advice as to the streams. 



The knowing ones in Devonshire never use winged flies, 

 and many of the most successful fishermen go through the 

 season with, at the outside, not more than half a dozen 

 different hackles. Of these, the essentials are a blue upright, 

 a red or red-and-black palmer, and a black fly, which for 

 convenience sake we may also call a palmer. The coch-a- 

 bondhu is not amiss, and there is a gaudy little fly called the 

 Meavy Red, which kills well on the Meavy. A small golden 



