CASTING IN SLUGGISH WATERS 
E. J. MYERS. 
On many rivers the water empties 
into deep dark holes that deaden the 
current into a sluggish stream barely 
able to more than move the drift to 
the bar where the shallowing water 
pours over the shingle. 
The Quat-a-wam-kedgwick’ is fa- 
mous for its holes, the like of which 
do not éxist even on the Grande Cod- 
roy. There the great salmon lie, but 
whether at the lower bar or in the mid- 
dle of the pool you do not know, for 
you can not see 3 feet below the dark- 
ness that blackens up to the surface. 
If the salmon take your fly it 1s never 
with a rise, nor swell nor roll, but with 
a straightening of the line as if the 
fish was intent on going to the anti- 
podes or running up the bank and 
climbing the mountain side. Many a 
time that is all you know, for never a 
sign is vouchsafed beyond motion. 
Usuaily there is so much slack that 
the line seems as if it were uncoiling 
on the surface of the water, for the 
rod never bends but trembles and shiv- 
ers ina shily-shally way. The reel-is 
dumb until it gives a frantic wail, and 
well it may, for that salmon never re- 
turns. 
Then you will wonder why your 
guides did not back water or use some 
other one of a thousand expedients to 
get a taut line, but unless you have 
cast on the big holes and learned to 
handle slack, you will lose salmon, pa- 
tience and guides. The latter, in that 
case, are likely to start back for the 
village; with you, if you are wise, and 
otherwise without you, as happened to 
an old friend of mine. 
Now stop the canoe in the rapids so 
as to cast with a lengthening line 
where the heavy water stops, cast as 
long as you can to the uttermost 
length, for the partial stretch of heavy 
water will keep a line taut for some 
distance into the sluggish water 
333 
Though you may not see it, you will 
appreciate as you raise the rod for the 
backward throw. Then move the 
canoe to the beginning of the heavy 
water into which the rapid seems lost 
in the dead stillness of the hole, and 
continue until you reach the middle of 
the hole, pulling your fly across it from 
current to current. Now cast, and as 
you cast wriggle the rod with the right 
hand which also holds the line which 
you draw through the fingers of the 
right hand with the left, so as to avoid 
any doubling and slack in the water, 
letting the line fall in the canoe as you 
reach for another draw. 
Constantly wriggle and maintain the 
dip-dip of the rod which gives life to 
the fly while the drawing-in is done. 
The right hand will keep as taut a line 
as possible, and will serve to hold the 
line if the salmon should take the fly. 
Be sure to have a free place in the bot- 
tom of the canoe where the slack line 
falls, and that there is naught to en- 
tangle the line, because in the big holes 
you angle for great salmon, aye, 30 to 
40 pounds and more, especially the 
Restigouche fish away up the main 
river. 
Remember the danger of the slack 
between the hand and the reel, and if 
the salmon takes the fly hold the line 
with the right hand with a grim firm- 
ness that yields not a fraction of an 
inch as you deliberately raise the rod 
until it lowly bends and bows await- 
ing the salmon’s rush, which must take 
out the line through fingers that slowly 
yield to a friction that burns to the 
bone. Never mind that, for you will 
save the salmon if you are so far ad- 
vanced as to get burned, 
Fail not to raise the rod slowly until 
it is well bowed but suffer not an inch 
of the line to pass through your fin- 
gers. 
If you have been wise and thereto- 
