336 FLY FISHING AND SPINNING 



you look across the water toward the pine-crowned cliffs, 

 guarding the approach to the river on the opposite side, 

 which run from the falls down stream to the bottom of the 

 rapids, you will notice how the surface of the river, as it 

 leaves the troubled waters of the head pool, is broken in its 

 first smooth glide by an almost submerged brown and grey 

 rock some thirty yards from that on which we are standing, 

 and some twenty yards from the precipice opposite. There, 

 at any time between May and September, resting after his 

 journey from the sea, in the eddy of that rock, so long as it 

 shows above water, will generally be found a good fish. If you 

 can present your fly in an attractive manner, you will probably 

 find him in a taking humour, and when happily you may be 

 lucky enough to gaff him, and try the same cast over again 

 later on, you will probably find another fish in his place. 



You will see at once that you cannot cast for that salmon 

 in any other position save from the jutting slippery and 

 spray-drenched rock on which we stand ; and to make such 

 a cast more difficult, twenty yards behind us rise the preci- 

 pitous walls of the river channel, against the iron sides of 

 which the overhead or side cast backward of the line will most 

 assuredly bring your fly with disastrous effects. 



To present your fly attractively, your cast should be 

 sufficiently long to drop the fly three yards at least beyond 

 the rock, so that it will then sweep round from the farther 

 side, and appear just over the salmon's position. 



This, however, means a fairly long throw, of thirty-three 

 yards at least, and although you can shoot the line, it is 

 still evident that the wall behind will preclude your extending 

 the line in that direction for the remaining thirty yards. 



We cannot use the Spey throw from our only standing- 

 place, for you will see how those low-lying rocks run out into 

 the stream below us, and our fly, in the up-stream drag of the 

 Spey cast, would most assuredly come to grief among them. 



