SCOTTISH SALMON-FISHING 173 



the case. Personally I have never used anything 

 but the fly, but that does not blind me to the fact 

 that an extraordinary amount of skill is required 

 both to cast and work properly the minnow and the 

 prawn. Such a man as Captain Campbell, who 

 will go any time in the autumn and take out fish 

 from the free waters above Perth when other anglers 

 just look on in amazement, knows something more 

 about minnows, how to use and change them 

 according to light and temperature of the water, 

 and depth at which to float them, than the ordinary 

 angler. He understands fully the finer points of 

 this class of fishing, and his exceptional skill will 

 have its just reward. I have seen, too, men using 

 prawn, both in Ireland and on the Tay, in a manner 

 that excited my admiration. They also had reached 

 a high level in this particular branch of fishing, 

 though I must confess it never appealed to me, 

 even when they hooked fish which I knew would 

 never rise to my fly. 



Perhaps, therefore, this very " chancey " nature 

 of salmon-fishing may account for its great popu- 

 larity, for the duffer knows that given the best 

 conditions he too may do as great things as the 

 expert. Moreover, it is in the nature of man to 

 desire some unusual reward for his labour — and 

 casting all day with a nineteen-foot rod is certainly 

 labour — and this is ever present, for having once 

 killed a twenty-pounder, there is always a hope 

 that the very next fish may be a thirty-pounder, 

 and so on, till even the more or less mythical fifty- 

 pounder comes within the ken of possibilities. Yet 

 these big things are given to the few, in Scotland, at 

 any rate. I remember Mr. Charles Murray, who 



