Salmon Tackle and Methods.—­It is when the drought breaks up and the long-awaited rain has come that the angler has his chance and makes ready his tackle, against the period of a few days (on some short streams only a few hours) during which the water will be right; right is a very exact term on some rivers, meaning not only that the colour of the water is suitable to the fly, but that its height shall be within an inch or two of a given mark, prescribed by experience.  As to the tackle which is made ready, there is, as in most angling matters, divergence of opinion.  Salmon fly-rods are now made principally of two materials, greenheart and split-cane; the former is less expensive, the latter is more durable; it is entirely a matter of taste which a man uses, but the split-cane rod is now rather more in favour, and for salmon-fishing it is in England usually built with a core of steel running from butt to tip and known as a “steel centre.”  How long the rod shall be is also a matter on which anglers differ, but from 16 ft. to 17 ft. 6 in. represents the limits within which most rods are preferred.  The tendency is to reduce rather than to increase the length of the rod, which may be accounted for by the adoption of a heavy line.  Early in the 19th century anglers used light-topped rods of 20 ft. and even more, and with them a light line composed partly of horse-hair; they thought 60 ft. with such material a good cast.  Modern experience, however, has shown that a shorter rod with a heavier top will throw a heavy dressed silk line much farther with less exertion.  Ninety feet is now considered a good fishing cast, while many men can throw a great deal more.  In the United States, where rods have long been used much lighter than in England, the limits suggested would be considered too high.  From 12 ft. 6 in. to 15 ft. 6 in. is about the range of the American angler’s choice, though long rods are not unknown with him.  The infinite variety of reels, lines, gut collars[1] and other forms of tackle which is now presented to the angler’s consideration and for his bewilderment is too wide a subject to be touched upon here.  Something, however, falls to be said about flies.  One of the perennially fruitful topics of inquiry is what the fish takes a salmon-fly to be.  Beyond a fairly general admission that it is regarded as something endowed with life, perhaps resembling a remembered article of marine diet, perhaps inviting gastronomic experiment, perhaps irritating merely and rousing an impulse to destroy, the discussion has not reached any definite conclusion.  But more or less connected with it is the controversy as to variety of colour and pattern.  Some authorities hold that a great variety of patterns with very minute differences in colour and shades of colour is essential to complete success; others contend that salmon do not differentiate between nice shades of colour, that they only draw distinctions between flies broadly as being light, medium or dark in general appearance,