TROUT FLIES IN 
FISHING. 
Remarkable Experience 
foundland. 
SALMON 
New 
T HERE is a pool on our river called 
the “Red Bank Pool.” It is both 
long and narrow, seldom more than 
thirty or forty yards wide, quite deep at 
the upper end and shallow in the middle 
and at the lower end, with little or no 
current when the water is low. The 
water was so clear that the fish could be 
plainly seen, some forty or fifty of them 
lying within easy distance of my cast. 
There was one big fellow, fully five feet 
long. He must have weighed forty-five 
or 'fifty pounds. 
Well, I cast for him and the others for 
a long time, using my smallest flies, viz.: 
Number 8, Black Dose, Jock Scott, Silver 
Doctor, Brown Fairy, but without effect. 
The salmon simply would not touch them. 
During this time my guide was amusing 
himself fishing for trout and casting about 
ten feet above me. 
He had pretty good luck, landing some 
four or Eve, running from twelve to four¬ 
teen inches long. He was using two very 
small trout flies on number ten hooks, 
“Seth Green” and “Royal Coachman.” 
Suddenly he hooked a salmon and im¬ 
mediately handed the rod to me. At 
almost that moment the salmon took a 
tremendous leap into the air and the light 
weight gut on the small hook failed to 
hold him and he got away. 
Of course, we were disgusted and in a 
short time went home. About three days 
afterwards, the river still being low and 
clear and the salmon still being there, I 
tried it again, and again the fish refused 
to notice my flies. My guide was fishing 
for trout exactly as before with the same 
flies, and he again hooked a salmon. This 
time the snell held and the fish took a long 
run down the pool, and as we had only 
about seventy-five yards of line, we were 
afraid that he would take it all out, but 
the guide who was playing the fish gradu¬ 
ally worked him back into the pool and 
recovered considerable line. The fish made 
several fierce jumps and jigged and rolled 
over. Still the snell held. When sud¬ 
denly the reel went to smash. Something 
inside of it had broken and it would not 
revolve 
“Oh, .Mr. Lowry,” said my guide, “I am 
afraid I shall lose him.” 
At that time the salmon was on the 
opposite side of the pool about thirty 
yards distant. 'I said to the guide, “Wil¬ 
liam, try to hold him quiet for a minute 
or two and possibly I can remedy matters.” 
I immediately cut off the leader from 
my salmon line and rod and waded out 
to the tip of his rod, cut his line and 
knotted it on to the salmon line. Of 
course, we had him then but as the knot 
on the line prevented its being reeled up 
further than a foot or two beyond the 
tip of the rod there appeared to be no 
way of bringing him up to the gaff. 
After a moment’s thought I told the 
guide to give me the rod and climb up 
on the bank, which was about seven feet 
high. As soon as he had accomplished 
this I handed him the rod again and lo¬ 
cated myself with the gaff below the bank. 
I instructed William to back off from the 
bank slowly and gradually work the 
salmon up to me and he succeeded in do¬ 
ing so and I was thus enabled to gaff the 
salmon (13 pounds). 
Here were two separate occasions with 
the water in exactly the same condition, 
with the same flies and the same style of 
fishing, on which salmon rose to trout 
flies. 
Therefore, it certainly looked as though 
it was reasonable to believe that when 
the water is low and clear two small flies 
on a trout line would attract a salmon 
who would pay no attention to a regular 
salmon fly. My theory is that the two 
flies moving across the surface of the 
water attract the fish’s attention much 
more readily than a single fly will do so. 
In order to test this I immediately went 
down the stream to another pool at the 
head of which there is quite swift water. 
Now, I had carefully fished this pool on 
my way up the river about three hours 
earlier in the day, with no response what¬ 
ever. What was my surprise when about 
the third cast I got a most vicious strike! 
So much so that the light gut on the little 
trout flies did not stand the strain and 
broke. 
These three successful uses of two small 
trout flies have pretty well convinced me 
that it is a good way to try for salmon 
when the water is low and clear, and next 
year I mean to give it a thorough try-out. 
Robert C. Lowry. 
FRESH WATER MUSSELS AS BAIT 
FOR CARP. 
Editor of Fishing Department: In the 
October number 'I notice the statement 
in relation to carp, that you have had 
many inquiries as to best manner of fish¬ 
ing for carp, and as it is from the school 
of experience that we all learn, I will give 
my experience in catching carp. In the 
months of July and August, 1911, I was 
located at Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, and 
at that season of the year the bass were 
not biting, and even if caught, were so 
infested with parasitic worms in the flesh 
of the back that no one fished for black 
bass, so if one wanted to go fishing lie 
had to be content with fishing for cat¬ 
fish ; though the Cottonwood River was 
full of carp no one made a success of carp 
fishing. At that time there was an epi¬ 
demic of pearl-hunting in that portion of 
the river near the town of Cottonwood 
Falls, and several persons were engaged 
in the business of gathering the so-called 
fresh water clams and opening them to 
search for the pearls, sometimes found in 
the same. 
One evening as I was returning in my 
skiff from a trip down the river I passed 
over a place where some person had 
opened some of the fresh water mollusks 
called “clams,” and I discovered that 
a large number of large carp were feeding 
on the opened “clams.” The next after¬ 
noon a friend went down the river with 
me, and we cut some green poles, ten 
feet long, which we fastened by a push 
into the bank, so that the end of our pole 
