THE SALMON FISHER. 65 



Let it ever be borne in mind by the old trout fish- 

 erman who aspires to catch salmon, that the latter 

 always come up from the bottom. You can often 

 see them lying on the gravel, quite motionless, head 

 up stream, and passive as a log in mid-channel. 

 But they are quite on the alert. A sudden move- 

 ment of the angler will send them up stream with a 

 streak of light following their wake like the flash of 

 a silvery arrow. So with the touch of the fly on the 

 surface. The salmon detects it " as quick as a wink," 

 and he rises up to it majestically ; not with the friv- 

 olous dash of the trout, which is constantly skitter- 

 ing restlessly hither and yon about the pool, but with 

 the mien of a courtier. He seizes the fly with a 

 gulp not daintily ; and then settles down again, 

 back to his lair, head foremost. By this process he 

 -can hardly help hooking himself. If he misses the 

 hook the chances are much against his looking at it 

 again. Hence, it is sufficiently plain that the angler 

 who " strikes at the rise " will only jerk his fly away 

 from the fish, whose movements are deliberate, and 

 who displays no tactics at all, and no genius what- 

 ever, and no subtle strategy, until he feels himself 

 liooked. Then his genius develops. 



