388 SALMON AND TROUT. 



appears to be practically useless ; at any rate, the natural bait 

 will kill ten or even twenty to one so taken. 



The extremely local character of the minnow as a spinning 

 bait has, however, been already alluded to at the beginning of 

 the article. 



WORM FISHING FOR SALMON AND BULL TROUT. 



There are many rivers in which the bull trout absolutely 

 refuses to rise to the fly, and some in which salmon are so 

 rarely to be tempted as to amount almost to the same thing 

 so far as the angler is concerned. There are also frequently 

 states of water — sometimes when it is too low and bright, 

 constantly where it is too thick — in which fly fishing is so hope- 

 less that some other mode of fishing must be had recourse to 

 or the riverside abandoned. 



Under such circumstances the worm is a perfectly legitimate 

 bait, and used as I am about to explain must be admitted to 

 afford quite as much sport, so far as the playing and landing of 

 the fish is concerned, as fly fishing itself. 



In saying that the worm may sometimes be used with 

 success in water that is very low and bright, I refer entirely to 

 this method of fishing, with which as I have myself repeatedly 

 had good sport under such circumstances, I am confident that 

 both salmon and bull trout may, at any rate in some rivers, be 

 taken when the water is at its lowest and the sun at its highest 

 and brightest. I will not say that this is always the case, but I 

 have known it not infrequently to be so, and where fly fishing 

 is out of question there cannot be any harm in at least trying 

 the worm. The best water for worm fishing is whilst it is rising 

 just before a flood, or clearing and settling down after it. 



Many fishermen assert that fish will not take on a rising 

 water, but in the case of worm fishing for salmon and bull trout 

 I have repeatedly proved the opposite of this to be the case. 

 Indeed, I hardly know which state of the water is the more 

 tavourable. Perhaps the first symptom of a freshet, bringing 



