SECRETS OF THE SALMON 



twelve pounds. We did this in order to see 

 whether the larger fly took the larger fish, and it 

 certainly proved so in this case. Recently in the 

 Restigouche I could only raise one fish on the large 

 inch-and-a-half hackle, and got as many as I 

 wanted on the smaller three-quarter-inch hackle. 

 These fish ran from twelve to eighteen pounds. 

 Another time at The Forks on the Upsalquitch on 

 a clear hot afternoon, I could not raise any among 

 a bunch of fish along a ledge with the three- 

 quarter-inch nor the one-and-a-half-inch-diameter 

 flies. I went into camp and tied the largest hackle 

 I could, over two and a quarter inches in diameter, 

 and immediately hooked three fish in succession. 

 It will be seen from this that no general rule can 

 be given for the fly to use at all times; a man must 

 be a fisherman to know. He should experiment 

 and find out the best size for each day. 



Recently I had a most interesting example of 

 how the diameter of a leader affects the number of 

 fish hooked. I was fishing the run above Jimmy's 

 Hole on the Restigouche and took one salmon 

 from the fifteen or twenty spread across the bar 

 at the top in about two feet of water. The leader 

 was twelve feet long and .014-inch diameter at 

 the small end. I raised about twenty fish in suc- 



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