Fly Fishing for Salmon. 9 



" The manner in which the salmon leaps is singular. 

 It descends deep into the water, and turning 

 its head towards the fall, makes upwards with all 

 its force ; but as it reaches the surface brings its 

 tail up to its mouth, and using it as a spring, 

 casts itself towards the height to be surmounted. 

 I have frequently seen them in this manner ascend 

 about ten or eleven feet, but I have read of their 

 leaping much higher." 



Mr. Hansard, in his "Trout and Salmon Fishing 

 in Wales," 1834, says "this assertion (putting their 

 tails into their mouths) has been long and still 

 continues a vulgar error." 



It is hardly necessary to say that the leap is 

 effected by the powerful muscles attached to the 

 tail, by which at the moment of leaving the water 

 the fish is sent with great force onwards and 

 upwards.^ 



In a recent little work on fly and worm fishing 

 for salmon, trout, and grayling, the author says, 

 *'The chief glory of salmon fishing lies in the rise, 

 which is certainly magnificent, and the only diffi- 

 culty of the capture as a rule consists in the strike. 

 So much is this the case that I have known veteran 



^ In the Bishop's Palace (now a lunatic asylum) at Rheinau, 

 near Schaffhausen, a place famous for salmon, is a coat of arms, 

 two of the quarterings being salmon with their tails in their 

 mouths in the act of leaping. 



