ioiS 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[June 29, 1907. 
Spring Salmon Fishing in Britain. 
Quarryiserg, Colwall, Malvern, England, June 
j_ Editor Forest and Stream: High-souled 
fishermen, of the dry-fly cult—artistic prac¬ 
titioners whose lot is cast in pleasant pastures, 
closely fenced about in various ways—are prone 
to belittle the lesser fry of their brethren of the 
angle, who prosecute, either wittingly or un¬ 
wittingly, or perforce, minor methods; dubbing 
the latter, members of the “chuck-and-chance- 
it” school. .. 
So be it. There are numerous walks _ in 
Streamland, various legitimate ways of trying 
to circumvent the sharp-sighted and timorous 
trout (as Walton terms it). But, be that as it 
mav, the salmon fisher—a king fisher, combatt.ng 
a kingly fish—is assuredly one of the fraternity 
of the aforesaid happy-go-lucky order. 
When you go forth to attempt to slay a 
salmon, you try to bear in mind a variety of in¬ 
fluential circumstances. You recall to memory 
that, according to‘the ever-varying conditions 
of wind, weather, water, locality, season and 
numerous other provisions, including the wlnm- 
whams and caprices of a vagarious fish, your 
fly should be large or small, gay, sombre or sub¬ 
fusc. You tempt your quarry with all manner, 
shades and sizes of lure, and you rise him not. 
There are those, alas! who, under such cir¬ 
cumstances, will have resort to the spinning 
bait, if not to the worm. These heterodox oper¬ 
ators salve their consciences and strive to ex¬ 
cuse their methods by the assertion that the fish- 
will not look at a fly. T he truth is that the 
fish in question are not given the option suf¬ 
ficiently. However, the orthodox angler is con¬ 
fronted with the much-threshed and not yet 
garnered question of flies. We will not now in¬ 
flict upon the reader a dipterous dissertation, 
but proceed. 
Your salmon, duly located by a watchtui 
guardian of the stream, declines your assorted 
and legitimate confections. The butcher slays 
not; the doctor cures not your ill luck; the 
dandy struts the surface of the water in vain; 
the champion is defeated; the chatterer might as 
well be silent. Like the black dose, the black 
ranger proves a bitter pill—to the man behind 
the rod, only. And so on. 
At the right fly, of the right season, your 
fish, certainly present, flirts a contumelious tail. 
At the wrong fly (as theory goes), he plunges, 
saltates and" fastens. Why bother about theo¬ 
retic fly lore? Not infrequently it is a delusive 
snare. Both salmon and trout rise sometimes 
at the simulation of the unseasonable, at the 
counterfeit of nothing in nature. The primal 
fly, a monstrosity of the ancient Greeks, was a 
poor imitation of a worm, of a minnow, of a 
snail, a shrimp or a prawn. If you cross the 
gracious border of Streamland, minded to kill 
a salmon, you labor perchance all day or for 
a week or more for naught. But if, bent upon 
cajoling trout or grayling, you put forth an ap¬ 
propriate fly, you will, not improbably, become 
attached to a fish—temporarily; for it is not an 
everyday occurrence for an angler to kdl a 
salmon on a slender trout rod and tackle. Con- 
trarywise, a trout will now and again grab and 
retain a Jock-Scott, a golden-butterfly, a 
nepenthe or what not huge and gaudy lure 
designed for his biggers and betters. As with 
salmon fishing, so with all angling, much un¬ 
certainty, not a little prospect of killing the 
crow when aiming at the pigeon. 
So much for purely philosophical discourse. 
Now for a recital of some recent practical ex¬ 
perience. “The play’s the thing.” On a day 
in March, with the easterly blast laden with a 
co-mixture of rain, sleet, hail and snow, the 
Wye being big but not yet either flooded, foul 
or not to be entered by wading, you are, if you 
please, to consider yourself as commencing a 
bout of salmon fighting on that tortuous river 
which virtually separates England from Wales 
and which the Roman intruders so felicitously 
named “Vaga.” 
Having gone through a quick-change per¬ 
formance, pretty much as aforesaid, you settle 
down to a smallish or medium Jock-Scott, 
which Caledonian lure is put forth and humored 
with considerable “nous” and skill, as you flatter 
yourself; but for a long time the frowning fates 
sternly forbid result, and your attendant, loung¬ 
ing sulkily on the bank, smokes a contempla¬ 
tive and critical short black pipe. Proceeding 
to fish a likely pool downwards, you commence 
with a short line; casting, now under the hither 
bank, next in midstream and anon toward the 
further margin. The line is gradually length¬ 
ened until you are throwing beautifully and 
heroically. Really, the performance is artistic! 
Does not doubting Thomas, your man, think 
so? Well, hardly. Suddenly he emits a wail 
and utters a fearsome Herefordshire maledic¬ 
tion as your fly, urged to its full limit aft, 
catches him in the cheek and tears away a cori- 
siderable gobbet of tender flesh. “Dally! 
screams Thomas the wounded, “yeu nation nigh 
teuk me oi aout! Sure as eggs, measter, yeu m 
loike tu heuk more’n yeu kin basket, ef so be 
yen goes on loike that ’ere!” 
Profuse apologies and a tender of the flask 
(accepted) follow this shocking contretemps; 
and Thomas, nursing his bleeding face in a 
dingy • red handkerchief, resorts again to the 
supreme consolation of the herb divine in the 
form of the rankest and cheapest shag. 
Presently, and while still in the upper and 
fluent portion of the pool, a foolish trout takes 
firm hold of Jock-Scott. There comes to creel 
a lively, many-spotted far to, turning the scale 
JK'y -2T. 
at over a pound. Now for the Welsh Wye. and 
particularly this middle length thereof, woefully 
depleted of this class, of finny folk, this would be 
regarded as a decided prize were you trout 
fishing; but, yearning for a. salmon of anything 
between twenty and fifty pounds, your very 
gorge rises at this intruding, this really noble 
speciment of a trout. 
Lower down fortune smiles. Smooth, dark 
water, full of submerged eddies, beyond the 
influence of the cascade above, looks tempting. 
Once, twice, thrice does the fly perform its 
alh tted circuit and return, untouched; but the 
fourth time, just as the rodman is in the act of 
withdrawing it from the surface of the water 
for another cast, the bowels of the deep are 
agitated, and, preceded by a wave, impelled 
and displaced by his own bulk, flounders heavily 
and half out of the water, a mighty salmon. 
The heart of the angler leaps up to his very’ 
mouth. The fish has missed the fly! After an 
anxious five minutes (an hour, surely?) the cast 
is repeated. Flounce! There he is! not so 
demonstrative this time—a boil in the water and 
a gentle plash as the great dorsal fin cuts the 
surface. A slight but sharp turn of the wrist, 
and, oh! moment of rapture, the line is taut 
and the rod bent to a delicious curve. 
“Habet!”—he has it! Yes; but will he re¬ 
tain it? Gamboling gamesomely at first and 
plowing all over the pool, the fish presently gets 
to ground like the veriest mean-spirited fox. 
All manner of maneuvers, new and old, are 
vainly tried. Stoning does not operate, nor 
does a reminder in the form of a bunch of keys 
sent down the line have the desired effect. The 
exertion of a lateral drag only seems to harden 
the heart of the monster. A severe exhibition 
of butting results in a severance, with the loss 
of fish, fly and keys; and for a time master and 
man are shrouded in a metaphorical gloom. 
Later, a far lesser specimen is lightly hooked. 
It leaps from the water with more than usual 
agility and altitude, and, descending, flashes 
away, unattached. A second smallish fish, (es¬ 
timated at some ten pounds), really well on, 
performs gymnastic feats around a sunken tree, 
and again the angler comes to grief. 
But at last he has his reward. He rises and 
grapples a perfect behemoth, locally regarded. 
Having gulped the lure viciously, this leviathan 
“takes charge” for awhile, and conducts him¬ 
self after the manner of a hooked tarpon, shark 
or alligator. Now, trusty Thomas, stand by; 
Steadily and slowly to the shore, and be handy, 
but not too handy, with the gaff! 
Whizz-z-z! whir-r-r! up the pool he darts, the 
line scattering the spray from the surface in a 
series of small fountains like the cutwater of a 
launch. The quarry has torn out a fearsome 
length of line, but as yet he is in a safe and “navi¬ 
gable” part of the pool, which allows of the 
reeling up and recovering of much silken strand. 
The good-tempered, nicelv-mannered leviathan! 
B.ut steady! there is a limit to his bonhomie. 
No further will he accept the mild control of 
the rod—any semblance of guidance. A re¬ 
bellious kick nearly jerks the angler’s arms from 
the shoulder joint, and down goes the salmon, 
obdurate, to the depths. 
What follows is an oft-told, prosaic story. 
With the assistance of wounded Thomas we 
coax the fish into the white water; gamboling, 
gyrating and curvetting alike gloriously and 
dangerously. Up and down, to and fro; so the 
battle wages. Becoming beaten at last, the fish 
submits to a sort of boating process—to being 
floated on his broad and shining side. Yet is 
caution still necessary. One awkward, heavy 
roll, or one feeble flop of that wide tail, and 
hook tears away its hold or gut parts. Thomas, 
creeping and crouching, ex-tends the gaff; 
smartly buries it deep in the ample flank, and 
drags the quarry to the shore, flattening the 
grass. 
A fresh-run salmon, silvery, gleaming, with 
the sea-lice still upon it. What does it turn 
the scale at? Well, Thomas avers that “’tis 
welly as big as a caalf, and must weigh forty 
pound, surelie.” But trusty Thomas has re¬ 
tained the flask, to some purpose. 
Clifford Cordley. 
Knots for Leaders. 
New York, June 21. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: In answer to your correspondent “K. 
D. J.” I inclose a sketch of. the best leader knot 
I know of and which, I think, is the knot he 
refers to. 
I have heard the knot referred to as the “buf¬ 
fer knot,” but do not know whether that is its 
correct name. 
To tie this knot place the two ends to be 
joined together one above the other and hold 
firmly. The end of the upper, strand is then 
passed away from the person tying under and 
around the lower strand and toward the main 
part of the upper strand until both strands have 
been twice encircled, when the end of the upper 
strand is passed between the two strands and 
stands out at right angles. 
Holding the knot so made firmly in position, 
reverse the two strands so that the end that 
pointed to the right points-to the left, and the 
former lower strand becomes the upper. The 
same twists are then made with the new upper 
strand, save that they are reversed, the new 
upper strand being brought toward the person 
tying, so that when the two encircling wraps are 
made the end of the new upper strand can be 
passed between the two strands in the opposite 
direction to the end of the new lower strand. 
The knot is then drawn tight and the result 
is a joining knot of which the greatest diameter 
is in the middle and the two ends protrude at 
right angles to and on opposite sides of the 
line. These ends can then be cut off close and 
the shape of the completed knot allows any loop 
of the leader made in casting to slip over it 
easily and with little chance of catching. 
Robert B. Lawrence. 
