THE ELUSIVE QUARRY 41 



comings and goings are much less easily ascertainable. 

 One cannot peer into the Dee or into the Wye as 

 exhaustively as Mr. Grimble examined the stream 

 near the coast of the West Highlands. Even at 

 their lowest the great rivers have pools which the 

 eye of man could fathom only from some point of 

 vantage at which the fish would see him before he 

 could see them; and they would not wait to be 

 inspected. Indeed, from about the middle of May 

 until the first flood in August, a period which is 

 usually almost rainless, we know but little about the 

 salmon in most of the waters that are not netted. It 

 is certain that there is not much sport during that 

 time. One conceives it possible that there would 

 be more if more were sought. Excepting as regards 

 a few rivers, which, with all the many others, will be 

 considered in later chapters, it is generally taken for 

 granted that to cast for salmon at any time between 

 the spring fishing and the autumn fishing would 

 be useless, and only here and there does an angler 

 think of trying. Perhaps, therefore, the understand- 

 ing that such fish as may be in the pools then do not 

 show any interest in lures is partly attributable to 

 lack of experiment. Even in spring and autumn it 

 is difficult to entice fish when the waters are very low; 

 and perhaps in the middle of the year it is the in- 

 appropriateness of ordinary tackle, rather than a 

 rigorous fasting of the fish, that renders the effort 

 hopeless. On each of four days at the very begin- 

 ning of a recent season, when the water was at 

 summer level, I myself caught a salmon on a large 



