SALMON FLIES 



yet In the sixth edition of the " Book on Angling " (1885), neither of these 

 popular flies is recommended for general use; both are there described 

 as special to the Tweed. Yet is "Jock Scott" no native of Tweedside; 

 like Venus, he was born at sea, having been devised and tied by Jock 

 Scott, fisherman to Lord John Scott, on a voyage to Norway in 1845. 



" Jock Scott " quickly established its reputation in Scandinavian 

 waters, and afterwards became sine qua non on the Tweed, where, only 

 a few years before its invention, brightly coloured flies were held in ab- 

 horrence, as witnesseth the following passage from Stoddart's "Angler's 

 Companion" (chapter xi): 



•' I am only stating a well known fact when I affirm that, in the 

 time I allude to, the salmon fishers on Tweedside not only held what 

 is called the Irish fly* in absolute ridicule, but actually forbade the 

 use of it on those portions of the river which they individually rented; 

 and this they did, not because they deemed it too deadly for every- 

 day use, but solely because they conceived it acted as a kind of bug- 

 bear to the fish, scaring them from their accustomed haunts and 

 resting places. . . . Was the bygone school of anglers a humbug ? 

 Is the modern one less so ? . . . Seriously speaking, are the tastes 

 and habits of salmon, as some assert, of a revolving nature ? Is the 

 fish, too, so capricious that a single fibre wanting in the lure — a 

 misplaced wing — a wrongly assorted hue — ^will discompose and 

 annoy it ? " 

 Stoddart goes on to tell of a certain Scottish laird who, like himself, 

 was profoundly sceptical about the merits of variety in flies, never fished 

 with any except those dressed with " snow-white dubbing and hackles, 

 silver twist and portions of the pencilled wing feather taken from the silver 

 pheasant . . . and although competed with by one of the ablest craftsmen 

 in the district, whose notions regarding the visual perceptions of fish were 

 perfectly different . . . managed generally to bear off the palm." 



Tom Todd Stoddart must be reckoned a powerful ally in defence of 

 opinion upon any point connected with salmon fishing, for no man ever 

 surrendered himself and sacrificed his material interests more com- 

 pletely to the thrall of that sport. Born in 1810, and admitted in 1833 

 a member of the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, he spent his whole 

 subsequent life, weather and season permitting, on the banks of rivers 



"Irish salmon-flies were made to combine all the hues of the rainbow at a time when none but jreys and brown* 

 and blacks were displayed in English and Irish waters. 



39 



