398 SALMON AND TROUT. 



happened on several subsequent occasions — as long as the water 

 was clear. In the Dee it is seldom muddy except in a high 

 flood, and it clears very quickly. 



' On the Shannon, at Castle Connell, and on the Galway 

 river they seldom use any other bait but the prawn during the 

 spring months, because it is found to be so deadly ; and when 

 fish are what is called "sulky," and refuse the fly, I think it 

 perfectly fair to catch them with the prawn or any other bait 

 they will take. I do not mean to say they will always take a 

 prawn if judiciously offered them ; on the contrary, I have 

 sometimes fished for a whole day with it without a touch ; but 

 such occasions are very rare, and except when trailing the 

 prawn behind a boat when fishing alongside of a fly and coUey 

 on the Shannon at Killaloe I cannot recollect a fish to have 

 ever taken any other bait in preference, always assuming that 

 the water was clear enough to use it. 



' It is quite possible that on the occasion I have mentioned 

 the fish may have seen the fly or colley before they saw the 

 prawn, and being in the humour they took the first of these 

 that came across them. I am inclined to this belief, as I 

 observed that my boatmen let out a much shorter line for the 

 prawn than they did for the fly and colley, and consequently 

 the last had the better chance of being first. Prawn, as well as 

 all other bait fishing, is looked upon with great disfavour by a 

 good many fishermen, who call it "poaching " and an unsports- 

 manlike proceeding. They think it useless fishing a pool with 

 the fly on the same day that it has been fished with a prawn ; 

 and some even go as far as to say that it spoils the pool 

 altogether for the season. 



* Of course a fish that has been caught with a prawn cannot 

 be caught over again with the fly, but barring the pool being 

 minus a fish or two, which it is quite possible might have been 

 the case had it been fished with a fly, no harm whatever will 

 have been done. Prawn fishing neither disturbs nor scares 

 salmon ; and I know from my own experience that when the 

 water is in order for fly fishing the chances of catching a fish 



