NECESSITY OF ANGLING-PILOTS. 63 



to enable anglers, without wetting their feet, to 

 reach the further side of the pool, which was its 

 best part. I consider a guide always necessary 

 to an angler, no matter how great his ability and 

 experience, who fishes a salmon river for the first 

 time. Without a guide, you are liable to fish spots 

 where salmon are not, and to pass by those in 

 which they are. Your guide should be himself an 

 angler, or have been one ; and he should not only 

 know all the best parts of the river for salmon, 

 and the flies they take, but he must be honestly 

 willing to give you the information he possesses. 

 In the absence of a guide, take it as a general 

 rule that salmon are seldom seen resting on a 

 smooth, gravelly, or muddy bottom. They in- 

 cline towards lying amongst rocks and large 

 stones ; and if a rapid current runs through them, 

 the angler must work his fly, not in the middle of 

 it, but by each side of it, for it is there salmon 

 lie, between the still and the rapid water. Salmon 

 very seldom lie in the middle of a rapid current ; 

 they could not do so without over-exertion. In 

 rocky or stony pools, where the current is moderate, 

 salmon lie in almost every part — before and be- 

 hind, and between small rocks, and at the extreme 

 end of the pool, where it is falling somewhat 

 rapidly to form the head of the next stream below. 



