SALMON FISHING WITH THE FLY. 203 



my friend T. F. — the water was very low, and we could see 

 from rocks overhanging every salmon in the pools. At the 

 bottom of a pool celebrated for fish taking the fly, we saw 

 four salmon lying close together. The pool was, I should 

 say, ten feet deep. I scrambled down the rocks to where I 

 could cast my fly over them. My friend stood above watching 

 my proceedings. After about six or seven casts over the fish, 

 he said, ' When your fly was in a particular position, one of 

 the salmon seemed to get uneasy and shifted his position a 

 trifle.' This happened two or three times, until at last the fish 

 could not stand it any longer, and took my fly, but I had the 

 bad luck to lose him after a hard fight. 



Upon another occasion, when a little farther down the river, 

 I was standing upon a rock watching my friend fish, where I 

 could see everything which was going on. The water was high 

 but very clear, and nearly a dozen times running 1 saw a fish 

 rising to the fly whenever it came to a particular part of the 

 stream, but he did not attempt to take it, and did not approach 

 nearer to it than at least a foot. The sun was shining on the 

 pool at the time, and thinking it was of no use trying any more 

 until sunset, we waited until the sun had disappeared behind 

 the hills. Afterwards, the very first cast my friend made he 

 hooked the fish and landed him. 



These are the only two occasions on which I have had the 

 chance of knowing what has taken place below the surface of 

 the water while a pool was being fished over, but after what I 

 saw I cannot quite believe a fish gets scared by seeing too 

 many flies. I have no doubt many a fish which we know 

 nothing about comes ' shy ' at a fly in the manner I have stated. 

 We leave the pool we have perhaps fished the whole day blank 

 in disgust, yet it often happens another fisherman takes posses- 

 sion of it, and hooks a fish before we are out of sight. What 

 can be more aggravating than this? Yet there are few of us 

 who have not had our tempers thus tried. ^ 



J In 1879 in July, about 6 A. Ji., I was first on the water on the Ristigoiiche, 

 fishing down, at Metapeclia, in a canoe. I had on 'Jock o' Scoit.' 1 did not 



