296 FLY FISHING AND SPINNING 



unfishable. Harling is perhaps the most killing, but by no 

 means the most interesting, method of presenting a spoon, a 

 fly, or minnow to the notice of the salmon, the skill in 

 presenting the lure depending on the manipulation of the 

 boat by its two oarsmen. The fisherman sits in the stern 

 of the boat, with his back to the bows. He has generally 

 two rods, one over each quarter of the boat, and with 

 about thirty yards of line out on each. The rods are fixed 

 at right angles to each other, and kept in this position by 

 shoes in the bottom of the boat for the butts, and cleats on 

 the gunwale of each quarter for the lower joint of each rod 

 to rest in. 



A spoon or minnow is generally used as a lure on one 

 rod and a fly as lure on the other. The lines are allowed 

 to drift down-stream behind the boat, which, start- 

 ing at the head of each pool, with the boatmen pulling 

 slowly against the stream, is permitted to drop very 

 gradually down the river. By the experience and judgment 

 used in keeping the boat at the most judicious speed through 

 the water, and moving in sweeping curves from bank to 

 bank of the river, the lures tailing down-stream behind the 

 the boat are presented to the salmon in the best possible 

 manner. 



The music of the reel and the pull on the rod at once 

 inform the fisherman that he has a fish " on," and he, 

 seizing with one hand the rod to which the salmon is 

 attached, passes the other rod into the ready grasp of the 

 after-boatman, who, having already thrown his oar aboard, 

 is waiting to receive it. The fisherman then proceeds to play 

 his fish, and while the after-boatman reels up the line on the 

 spare rod, the other keeps the boat going. As soon as an 

 opportunity offers the fisherman lands and plays his fish 

 from the bank. The 5o-pound salmon mentioned on 

 P- 355 was killed in this manner. 



