130 The American tialmon-jisherman. 



or less current, may be close at hand. For some reasons 

 known only to themselves, and apparently beyond the 

 skill of man to divine, they select and haunt the one, 

 while they utterly ignore the other, though seemingly in 

 every way preferable. I have conversed with many 

 salmon-fishermen in reference to this peculiarity. But I 

 have invariably found that those whose opinion was en- 

 titled to most weight, were the most reluctant to assign 

 a cause. 



But the angler has been dreaming salmon-fishing per- 

 haps for months, and he is impatient to begin. He casts 

 his eye over the current and its surroundings, as a general 

 surveys the field of an anticipated battle. He notes every 

 obstruction in or near the water which may become a fac- 

 tor in the struggle should he fasten a fish, and as far as 

 possible decides in anticipation what he will do in every 

 imaginable emergency. 



He. then launches his fly in a direction at a right angle 

 to the current, and guides it to the surface of the water 

 as lightly and with as straight a line as his skill will per- 

 mit. When the cast is complete his rod will point across 

 the current. Retaining the rod in that position, its tip 

 still pointing in the same direction, he causes that part 

 of his rod to vibrate up and down in a perpendicular 

 plane through an amplitude of about one foot, and with 

 a rapidity of vibration about double that of his pulse. 

 When the line where it enters the water appears to 

 gently slap its surface at every downward vibration of 

 the tip of the rod, the motion is correct. 



The fly is now acted on by three forces: first, the cur- 

 rent, tending to sweep it down stream; second, the re- 



