TH® SALMON. 181 
more grave colored should be the fly, as a general rule. 
Where the river is foul, or the current much broken, 
foamy and rapid, the fly can hardly be too large, or too 
gaily colored. , 
For the rest, no writing can teach a man howto throw 
a fly, how to strike a fish when he has risen, or how to 
kill when he has struck him ; practice, patience, perse- 
verance, and coolness are the great requisites, and the 
best way of learning is to accompany a good fly-fisher 
to the brook-side, to observe and study his motions, and 
by example more than by oral instruction to acquire his 
method, and by deg@ees approach his skill. 
I suppose hardly any one would attempt to use the 
double-handed rod, or attempt salmon, who had not first 
learned to throw a cast of flies from the light rod, and 
- succeeded in hooking a trout. I will therefore merely 
observe, for the benefit of the trout fisher who makes 
his first essay on salmon, that it is not advisable, as in 
trout fishing, to keep the fly dancing as it were and hoy- 
ering on the surface, but to let it sink a little way, pull 
it back with a slight jerk not quite out of water, and 
then let it sink again, and so on until your cast is finish- 
ed, and you lift your fly for another. Again, when a 
salmon has risen at your fly, you need not strike near so 
quickly, and you must strike much more strongly and 
sharply than at a trout. Colquhoun, in his capital book, 
“The Moor and the Loch,” recommends that the sal- 
mon be allowed to turn before striking him, and I 
