THE SHANNON 299 



The Inchiquin fly does there, and it will do better if, instead 

 of mallard and peacock breast wing, plain brown turkey, or 

 gold pheasant tail are used. The body and hackle can also be 

 varied by being made more or less sandy. Pig's wool, from the 

 natural white to the above red, hackles of lighter or darker red 

 to match, and wings of brown turkey or gold pheasant tail, are 

 the correct thing. The flies should be rough and well picked 

 out. Hooks 8 to 10. 



THE SHANNON 



The Shannon is a very large and heavy river. The water in 

 places is very rapid, broken, and dangerous to the angler's 

 hopes, as it often occurs that the place where a fish is hooked 

 is so infested with hidden and awkward rocks that the angler 

 is obliged to hold on and not give a yard of line if he can avoid 

 it. The water at Castle Connell has long been celebrated as a 

 first-class sporting water, and here the salmon-fisher fre- 

 quently has magnificent sport. At Killaloe the water is more 

 open and easy. Lough Derg, an expansion of the Shannon, 

 gives splendid large trout-fishing, and when the fish are in the 

 humour, great numbers are taken with the cross line. As on 

 the Moy, much of the fishing is done from cots. 



The large heavy water Shannon flies are very showy affairs. 

 Here is one dressed for me by poor Blacker, years ago. It is 

 quite a work of art. 



No. i. The Shannon (Plate XVII, Fig. 4). Tag, gold 

 tinsel and lemon-yellow floss ; tail, two toppings, scarlet 

 ibis and blue macaw ; butt, black ostrich ; body, of floss silk, 

 in joints of various colour, pale blue, orange, puce, and pea- 

 green, every joint being mounted by a turn of ostrich herl of 

 the same colour as the joint and over this a hackle of the 

 same tint ; at the shoulder one or two gold pheasant rump 

 feathers are used as hackles ; gold thread warped on each 

 joint separately ; wing, two bright yellow macaw feathers, 

 with black streak down the centre, a strip of dark-specked 

 argus on either side, and sprigs of tippet ditto, two or three 

 slips of ibis at shoulder, and over them, on either cheek, a 

 small feather of purple lory, two or three large toppings over 

 all ; blue macaw ribs, and black head ; hook No. 2. I do not 

 think the jointed body by any means necessary, nor is it used 

 generally on the Shannon. The wing given is, I know, pretty 

 much used, when the feathers can be obtained, but the yellow 

 macaw feathers of the right size are not easy to obtain, and 



