SPINNING AND BAIT FISHING. 389 
down with it, as, of course, it does, a certain amount of bottom 
food, puts the fish at once on the alert and on the look-out for 
* ground bait.’ There is a pool on the upper Usk, locally called 
the Bason Pool, with a stone in the middle which acts as a 
sort of water-gauge, and when this stone was nearly, but not 
quite, covered, worm fishing in the pool was at its perfection, 
no matter whether the level were reached by the rising or fall- 
ing process. When once the water was over the stone it would 
be a saving of patience and tackle to sit down on the bank and 
smoke, for the chance of killing a fish was almost zz2. 
Everyone knows, of course, that the rule of a certain level 
of water being requisite holds good with regard to fishing with 
the fly in almost every pool. I well remember that my friend, 
Mr. John Blackwall, junior, quite the most successful salmon 
fisher on the Conway, used to have such a water-gauge on 
the side of the river opposite his drawing-room window, some 
quarter of a mile off, but which he could yet command by the 
aid of a strong telescope or a pair of field-glasses, and he never 
used to think of sallying forth until the water had reached the 
exact mark. 
This is all very well, however, for salmon fishers residing 
constantly within sight of their river, to whom time is of no 
particular object, and every month of the season open. For 
my own part, it takes a very bad state of water indeed to keep 
me from the riverside, and I must say that I can recall not 
one, but many occasions, when I have put my rod together 
amongst the scarcely suppressed jeers of my friends, and in the 
teeth of local guédnuncs, with the result of killing a salmon 
after all. I recollect once, in particular, on the Bush, in 
the long pool below Bush mills, when the water was almost 
chocolate colour, and very nearly opaque, so that even my 
friend, Dr. Peard, one of the most expert and indefatigable of 
salmon fishers, as well as the most charming of companions, 
thought it hopeless to cast a fly—and he knew the Bush from 
the sea to the Leap, every stone and turn of it. And yet I had 
not been fishing ten minutes with one of Willie Haughie’s 
