FAILURES AND SUCCESSES 



still have a lively recollection of my battle with my one twenty- 

 pounder in the long pool by Dunadd. There had been a good 

 soaking night, but the rain had stopped about four in the morn- 

 ing, and the water had begun to run down before I reached 

 Kilmichael Bridge. I therefore started to fish down the right 

 bank with those sanguine expectations that no amount of ad- 

 verse experience has ever succeeded in altogether destroying. 

 I was using a rather large single-handed rod, twelve feet long, 

 one of Farlow's earliest split-cane models ; and, as the water 

 was heavy and dark, I put on a larger fly than I generally try 

 in the Add, where most fish are generally caught with one 

 dressed small as for sea trout. The sky was bright, and there 

 were glimpses of sun through flying clouds, so I am pretty sure 

 that I must have been using a Blue Doctor. Whatever it was, 

 it answered, and I had caught two or three nice silvery fish, 

 weighing from five to eight pounds, before I got to the stone 

 wall at the head of the long pool above Dunadd farm. I have 

 already mentioned that I was on the right bank of the river. 

 This is not the usual side from which to fish this part of the 

 water, as in most of the best pools the deep water is under that 

 bank and the shallows are on the other. I do not now remember 

 my reason for taking so unusual a course, but it may have been 

 because, using a small rod and not wearing waders, I preferred 

 to be near the deep water, although I was not ignorant of the 

 fact that salmon generally rise better when following the fly 

 as it sweeps round over the deep water and begins to approach 

 the shallower part of the stream. About the third cast, after 

 I had crossed the wall, I felt a heavy pull somewhere out in 



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