SALMON FLY, SPINNING LURE, ETC. 347 



should be remembered " The finer the water, the finer 

 the lure." 



Compel yourself to believe that, during the time you are 

 using it, the lure with which you are fishing must be 

 successful. 



I have found, in the majority of rivers I have fished, that 

 after any spate the minnow and the fly may at any time of the 

 year be used, and apparently with equal chance of success. 



Consider and act on local advice in your selection of 

 lures, but directly you find them failures act on your own 

 initiative, use your own judgment, and be guided by former 

 successful experience. 



THE WELSH WYE 



It is with pleasure I now give two letters from well- 

 known and experienced fishermen, which should be 

 carefully considered by my readers. These letters deal 

 with the Welsh Wye, which to me is certainly the most 

 interesting salmon river in the world. In one, if not the 

 most beautiful of its stretches, I caught from a coracle my 

 first salmon, a fifteen pound spring fish, with which I effected 

 a union just above Bannerman's Inn, and which I landed at 

 the bend below the Symonds Yat rapids. The fortunes of 

 this beautiful river I have followed since childhood with 

 unabated confidence in its ultimate popularity. A former 

 Chairman of the Wye Board of Conservators, to whom 

 I think the Wye owes so much, J. L. Hotchkiss, Esq., was 

 one of the first whom I had the pleasure of coaching in 

 casting a salmon fly, and since then very many of those 

 who fish on this particular river have been instructed by 

 me in fly-casting and spinning, and my predictions that 

 ultimately the river of my youth would rank, if not as the 

 best, at least as one of the first rivers for salmon fishing in 

 the United Kingdom, has been fulfilled. 



