Almost everything ever written about Atlantic salmon fishing is unadulterated nonsense. The reason for this is quite simple. A long time ago somebody said that you had to catch a thousand Atlantic salmon before you were allowed to write about them. Ever since, fishermen have been so busy trying to catch a thousand salmon and then record their accomplishment for posterity that they haven’t had any time to think the subject through. For example, between 1920 and 1929 Frank G. Griswold caught nearly seven tons of Atlantic salmon on flies and wrote several books about it. Obviously, with all this fishing and writing he couldn’t possibly have found time to think as well. Fortunately, this is not my case. Although I do spend a fair amount of time fishing for salmon, I have not caught a thousand, not am I likely to. In fact, I haven’t caught very many of them at all. Consequently, with all the time I have to contemplate this noble fish, as opposed to catching it, I feel that I am far more qualified than most to expound on the arcane secrets of successful salmon fishing.

The thing to remember is that salmon are pretty stupid as fish go. They aren’t smart like trout. To catch a trout you need a PHD in entomology in order to properly match the hatch. A trout usually stays in the river where it was born and spends most of its time learning to classify various fly patterns. If the trout studies hard and doesn’t get it from the toxic waste, it stands a fair chance of dying of old age. Not so the salmon! At an age when it is still too young to know any better, the salmon parr turns into a smolt and runs off to sea where it is usually eaten by a killer whale or turns into Danish smoked salmon. The few that do survive are so sex crazed and randy by the time they get back to the river a couple of years later that they can’t tell a Humpy from a Royal Wulff. This is why you don’t have to be very smart to be a salmon fisherperson.

It has been scientifically proven that the only thing a salmon eats when it returns to the river is black sludge. You can verify this for yourself if you want to. Slit open the stomach of a freshly caught salmon. If you find anything at all, it will be black sludge that doesn’t smell very good. Luckily for the fishing fraternity, the salmon doesn’t know its own digestive limitations, since fishing black sludge would be highly problematical. A salmon takes a fly because it thinks it can eat the fly, even though it can’t. Every poacher worth his or her salt knows that the best way to angle for salmon is with a worm, and worms represent non aggressive food.

Some salmon flies are better than others, and the best patterns will vary from river to river. For instance, in Iceland the Blue Charm is very productive. I used to think that this is because the first thing the returning salmon sees as dawn breaks over the river is a bunch of Blue Charms swimming around and about. Since the salmon left the river a long time ago and taxed its memory to the limit to find its way back, it really doesn’t remember what it used to feed on as a parr. Therefore, it naturally concludes that the Blue Charm is the predominate food source in the neighborhood. In the United Kingdom it might make the same assumption about the Jock Scott or in Canada the Black Bear , Green Butt. There is some truth in this theory, but it is incomplete.

John Betts, one of the more innovative and articulate members of the flyfishing community, explained it to me one lazy afternoon as we sat on the bank and watched the stream of humanity flow past his booth at the Suffern World Fishing and Outdoor Exposition.

"You have to look for the common element," he said. "The truth is that you can catch a salmon on any fly, although some are better than others. Have you ever asked yourself why?"

"No," I said. "What is the common element?"

"The hook," he replied. "Nobody ever caught a salmon on a fly without a hook in it. The first thing the salmon sees when it goes up the river is a lot of hooks with strings moving all over the place. It thinks that the hooks are dinner. To catch a salmon you need a hook with a long string attached to it. When the salmon sees the hook with the string attached, it naturally tries to ingest it."

"How incredible!" I cried at this remarkable intuition. "It’s so simple, but why bother with the fly?"

"Camouflage. You have to camouflage the hook so the salmon thinks it’s real. Remember that all living things seek to perpetuate their species. Hooks would rapidly become extinct if they could not hide from predators, so the salmon naturally expects the hook to try to get away. This is why the hook should be moving through the water. It’s also a good idea to use an inconspicuous string so as not to make things too obvious for the fish."

I have long reflected on this revelational conversation which is destined to revolutionize the sport of salmon fishing. Of course it takes more than a well camouflaged hook to consistently fool Salmo Salar. Presentation is also very important, but I’ll save this topic for a future article, maybe after next year’s show. In the meantime, purge your library of all those worthless books on salmon fishing. You won’t need them anymore.