SALMON FISHING WITH THE FLY. 249 
angler is out the better, but if the sky is overcast I should pre- 
fer the hours I before mentioned for choice. I have frequently 
known early risers to have flogged all the pools over all the 
morning blank, and the man who appeared on the scene at nine 
or ten o’clock to get sport in those same pools. Salmon will 
often only rise at certain times of the day, and it is luck to come 
across them when in the humour. There is one time of the 
evening, however, when I should never despair of catching a fish 
if I had been blank all day. The time is about a quarter of an 
hour after sunset, after a hot bright day in the spring months, 
when the glare is off the water. There was a pool on the Kil- 
murry water, on the Blackwater, county Cork, that hardly ever 
failed me under such circumstances ; it was a sharp running 
water, as smooth as glass, and a very good rising pool at any 
hour of the day. When there was no wind, I used to commence 
fishing at sunset, but although I had fished the pool once, twice, 
or three times, I never couldrise a fish until about a quarter of 
an hour afterwards. It was then a certainty, but the fish were. 
only on the rise for about twenty minutes, and there was seldom 
time to catch more than one fish. This was the only pool they 
seemed to care about rising in at this hour, and the less wind 
there was the more certain I was to get a fish. 
When fishing private water the angler can choose his own 
time for beginning operations, and will have the satisfaction 
of knowing that his fly will be the first one seen by the fish in 
the morning, but when fishing in club or open water those that 
go out late will be considerably handicapped, and will very 
often have to travel a long way to secure a pool. 
A club or open water is a very good school for a beginner 
to commence his salmon-fishing education. Here he will find 
plenty of competitors, and he will have a far better chance of 
acquiring knowledge than if he were fishing in private water, 
with no one but perhaps an inexperienced prejudiced person as 
an attendant to advise him. In an open water he will come 
across old and experienced anglers who, although they cannot 
be expected to give him information that would mar their own 
