80 



and tlie man who accomplishes it may fairly claim to have 

 established his right to be considered a master of the art. 



I was very unfortunate in my choice of a visit to Castle- 

 connell, for the fishing- was rascally bad, to say the least of 

 it, and this was aggravated by the tricks of the people at 

 the Killaloe weir. Some works were there in progress, and 

 the waters rose and fell several feet in the course of each day. 

 None the less my month on the Shannon was a verj^ pleasant 

 one, and as a holiday it was very enjoyable. Fishing from 

 a shallow cot, held in the fast, broken water by two men — 

 one at stem and the other at the starn — armed with iron- 

 shod punt poles is not easy work, and, truth to tell, the 

 uneasy motion of the boat made my chum sea-sick, to begin 

 with. The sight of huge salmon, from 201b. to 301b., 

 rising in mid-stream, was too tempting to be resisted, and 

 go for them he would, and did, regardless of "mal de mer." 

 In the early part of the season, six inch blue phantom 

 minnows account for most of the Shannon salmon, or big 

 yellow flies, the size of a canary bird, containing about 

 10s. worth of gold pheasant toppings, are the correct thing. 

 The water is so fast that the fly fishes itself and requires 

 no " working," but cutting the flies (trailing) is a method 

 much in vogue on this river. 



Our illustrations show three sections of the Shannon, 

 from the pool opposite the village, down \o the easy water 

 below the Doonas falls. 



