88 CHATS ON ANGLING. 



line out well behind him. Holding the rod with him, I kept the same 

 length of line, steadily flogging the water to the tune of " one, two," 

 when, at about the ninth or tenth cast, a travelling fish seized our fly, 

 and eventually came to the gaff, a clean-run salmon of 18 lb. 



But surely the precise pattern of the fly, within limits, is of small 

 moment ; the size, coupled with the proper working of the fibres, is 

 the main thing. Every angler has, naturally, his own favourite 

 shibboleth, mainly, in my opinion, because he has succeeded with it, 

 and therefore perseveres with it far more steadily than with any other 

 pattern. In the same way local fetishes are set up, and when once 

 adopted are hard to shift. On the Beauly, years ago, fishing on that 

 lovely water in the spring, we were using the orthodox spring fly, a 

 sort of exaggerated Alexandra, and were mainly catching kelts. When 

 one of us suggested a Gordon (having lately used it on the Dee) the 

 fishermen laughed us to scorn, and said we might as well fish with it on 

 the high road. Nevertheless, the fly was tried, and nearly all the clean 

 fish we got that week were secured by it. When our time was up our 

 gillies begged for our worn specimens of the goodly Gordon, and the next 

 lessee caught all his fish upon flies of that pattern ; and, for aught I know, 

 that fly may now be reckoned as one of the standard flies of the river. 



To revert to the original query. Can it be answered satisfactorily? 

 Surely it must represent some food taken whilst the salmon are in 

 their sea home ; and yet, if this be the only probable answer, how 

 comes it that on some rivers, as is the case in Canada, salmon cannot 

 be persuaded to rise at any fly of the kind ? After all, whether the 

 question is unanswerable or no, the glorious uncertainty of salmon 

 fishing forms one of its most potent fascinations. If every bungling 

 cast hooked a salmon, few people would care for the sport. 



All this said, then, what form of fly are we to use ? Here we get 

 upon very debatable ground, and whatever conclusion we arrive at will 

 probably be strenuously opposed. The patterns of salmon flies are 

 legion, many differing but slightly from others. Are we to credit salmon 

 with such extraordinary intelligence as to believe them able to differentiate 

 between varieties of almost similar flies, and to have such a correct eye 

 for colour as to refuse a fly because the colour of the body or hackle 

 is a shade unorthodox? The size of the fly, no doubt, is a most 



