54 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 



the mouths of cold brooks- or spring holes, and they need not 

 be looked for elsewhere. But salmon are uniformly found, 

 in August as well as in June, in pools. To be sure, when 

 the water is well up, there are pools where there are only 

 shallow riffs when the water is low. I have often taken fish 

 at high water where I would, not think of casting for them 

 when the water was low. Hence one never comes to know 

 a river so as to make the most of it until he has fished rt at 

 all its stages. But whether the water is high or low it is all 

 the same; salmon rest in pools, and it is the merest chance 

 if any are taken elsewhere. In these pools the water is not 

 always to say deep, but it is always of greater depth than 

 the water in their immediate neighborhood, and the full 

 force of the current is ordinarily defected from them by the 

 rocks of larger or smaller dimensions, whose position has 

 given the motion to the water which, in time, has scooped 

 out these resting places for the kingly fish. 



On all the rivers I have fished for salmon and I assume 

 it be true of all others the best pools are almost always 

 found just above some rough or heavy rapid. The fatigue 

 involved in ascending these rapids make rest all the more 

 welcome. The excitement in fishing these pools is intensi- 

 fied by the doubt which always follows a strike whether you 

 will be able to kill your fish within the limits of the pool or 

 whether he will rush down the rapids, and so compel you 

 ,o follow him. In that case the chances are always against 

 you, because, with all the skill of your canoemen, if you 

 are in a canoe, or of yourself if you are on shore and the 

 water renders wading possible, it is always questionable 

 whether you can keep up with your flying fish. Besides, in 

 rushing through a rapid full of rocks, there is always the 

 chance that your line will get hitched, or, worst of all, that 

 the fish may take it into his head to stop midway of the 

 rapid, and thus, like a hunted deer, double on you and allow 

 you to swoop past him, only to find out the fact when you 

 have dropped into still water "a hundred yards or more be- 

 low the point where your fish is sulking. Under these latter 

 conditions a hitched line is often the sequel; or, when it is 



