EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xi 



After every cast, just as the fly falls on the water, he takes a 

 couple of paces backwards that is, in the direction of the 

 head of the pool, and so continues till he reaches the top. This 

 plan is the easiest way to fish a stretch of dead water, for the 

 backward paces after the cast straighten out the bag in the line. 

 Moreover, even in a brisk stream, a salmon will often move to a 

 fly brought up from behind him, which he has refused to 

 notice when shown him in the ordinary way. Times without 

 number has this happened in my experience. The most 

 memorable instance of it was on 26th February, 1900. I began 

 fishing Kilfedder stream on the Helmsdale from the top, water 

 very high, but in fine colour. I touched three fish going down, 

 but none of them took hold. Arrived at the tail of the pool I 

 began backing up ; before reaching the head of it I landed five 

 clean fish. I then fished down the whole of No. i beat without 

 seeing anything. The lowest cast on that beat is called the 

 Flat Pool. I fished it down without moving anything ; turned 

 and backed it up, and had five more springers by the time I 

 reached the top. It was now getting dusk ; there was no more 

 than time for a cast over the head of Salzcraggie, where, fishing 

 down this time, I landed another salmon, the eleventh in 

 eleven consecutive rises. One advantage of this mode of 

 fishing a pool is that, whereas it is easier to guide a salmon 

 down-stream than to lead him up against the current, there is 

 less chance when playing him of disturbing water over which 

 the fly has not yet passed. 



Since Francis fished, observed and wrote, considerable 

 advance has been achieved in our knowledge of the life- 

 history of the salmon. The systematic marking of both clean 

 fish and kelts, undertaken and maintained through a long 

 series of years, first, by the late Mr. Walter Archer, and 

 subsequently by Mr. W. L. Calderwood, who succeeded him as 

 Inspector of Salmon Fisheries under the Fishery Board for 

 Scotland, has elucidated much that was previously obscure in 

 the seasonal movements and rate of growth of salmon and has 

 dissipated many errors that prevailed on the subject. Most 

 notable and unexpected has been the light thrown upon the 

 period between the first descent of the smolt or young salmon 

 to the sea and the fish's first return to fresh water. It used to be 

 generally assumed that all salmon made their first appearance 

 in the rivers in the form of grilse. But this was conclusively 

 disproved by the operations conducted by Mr. Calderwood and 

 Mr. P. D. Malloch in the Tay. In the spring of 1905 a very 



