PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 77 



distinctly visible ; and no fish is more shy or more 

 easily frightened. To take a salmon under these 

 circumstances requires the exercise of the greatest 

 patience, and to take them in any great numbers 

 is proof of the very highest skill. I would never 

 advise any one who has to make a long journey to 

 reach salmon waters to go later than the first of 

 July, except on compulsion. Better fish in August 

 than not fish at all, but you will be sure of a larger 

 catch in one week toward the close of June than 

 during a whole month after the fifteenth of July. 



It is, however, no proof that there are no salmon 

 in a pool because they do not rise. I have more 

 than once cast all day in a pool alive with leaping 

 salmon above, below and all around me with- 

 out being able to lure one to my hook. This is 

 one of the peculiarities of the fish I cannot fathom. 

 My own experience is the experience of every one 

 who has ever spent even a week upon a salmon 

 river. 



It is generally believed that salmon eat nothing 

 after they enter fresh water ; and their apparently 

 empty stomachs when dissected are cited in proof 

 of the theory. But if they eat nothing, and have 

 no desire to do so, why do they rise to a living or 

 artificial object ? Why do they often even gorge 

 the fly and rise to a minnow, or take a minnow or 

 a fly when trolled under the surface, or when 



