28 ROD 6- CREEL 



there are plenty of snags. When the water is high and coloured, 

 prawns, red minnows and 1% inch Victoria spoons are best, later 

 on when it clears use silver Devons, Sanky Minnows (a local 

 invention, very light and good for shallow water) and 1% inch 

 copper spoons with a scarlet tassel on the hook. Use the spoons 

 in the slowest running water. 



Fishing for Spring. If the weather is bright and clear, fish 

 from daylight until nine, then from five in the evening until dark. 

 Sometimes if it is cloudy you may get a strike at any time during 

 the day, but morning and evening are always the best. 



Salmon always lie at or near the head of a pool or reach in 

 the slackest water and it is little use fishing right down to the 

 tail of a reach, unless you want to catch a " Dolly," one or two 

 of which can often be caught in water that is too swift for salmon. 



Unlike fishing for "steelheads," you can go on fishing the 

 same pool all day with some chance of success, as if fish are not 

 there one is liable to come in any time. Moreover if they are 

 there and not taking, once in a while one will suddenly develop 

 an appetite. I have seen half a dozen men fishing a favourite 

 piece of water on the "Vedder" practically all day and once in 

 a while one of them would hook a fish, possibly having made a 

 hundred casts in the same place. And I have seen a man fish 

 this same piece of water for nearly two hours and give it up and 

 another man immediately try it with just the same bait and hook 

 a fish within ten minutes. You never can tell what they are going 

 to do except that if there are any in the river and you have the 

 energy to be out at daylight you are fairly certain to at any rate 

 hook one. 



The " spring" is a very savage fighter, he may not make so 

 many jumps or such wild dashes as a "steelhead," but his runs 

 are longer and if anything more powerful and he is very apt to 

 go clean out of the pool and into the rapids below. If they do 

 go out and you cannot follow them, you might as well let them 

 pull straight on the line and break you at once, the chances are 

 the hook or the trace w r ill go, but if you wait until all your line 

 is out it may break at the drum and you will lose the whole line 

 also. 



