Fishing -- Scotland; Hunting -- Scotland; Salmon fishing -- Great Britain; Spanish American literature -- History and criticism
kindly gave me several salmon flies, and said that his butler, C.,
who was an experienced hand at gaffing salmon, should come with
me. Among the flies which my host had given me was a “Mar Lodge”
(size 4/0), and with this I fished all the morning and up to about
three o’clock in the afternoon without, however, seeing or touching
anything. C. said that he was afraid the day was going to be a
blank again. I said that I would like to try once more a particular
spot below a rock in the upper part of a pool higher up the river,
which I had fished in the morning and which I thought looked a very
likely place for a salmon to lie. In order to fish this pool it
was necessary to use a boat. It was a beautiful afternoon and the
sun was still shining. We crossed over the river at the bottom of
the pool and rowed up on the other side, keeping close to the bank
so as not to disturb that part of the pool which I was going to
fish. C. worked the boat with great skill, and at my first cast I
managed to place my fly exactly where I wished it to go below the
rock. As the fly swung round with the current I suddenly saw for
a second a huge silvery fish in the clear, transparent water upon
which the sun was shining. At the same moment the line tightened.
“I have him,” I said, as the line went screeching off the reel.
The fish ran straight up-stream for about ninety yards, and then
leaped twice, high into the air. It was by far the largest salmon
I had ever seen, clean-run and glittering like a silver coin
fresh from the Mint. This first danger safely passed, I gradually
persuaded him to come back again. C. said, “He must be well hooked,
and he’s a very big fish. That fish of 29 lb. which the Major got
would look quite small beside him.” For some time after this the
fish moved about the pool, but made no attempt to run. He then
made a violent rush of about sixty yards, and lashed about on the
top of the water, once more showing himself and giving us a fair
idea of his size. Again I got him well under control, and for a
considerable time he adopted the same tactics as before, moving
slowly and steadily backwards and forwards at varying depths. I
had been thinking for some time that perhaps I had been rather too
easy with him, and that I had not acted on the maxim with which,
I suppose, almost every salmon fisher will agree, that one ought
never to let a fish rest, and that a big fish may take hours to
land if he is not worried enough. The line and cast had been
thoroughly tested before we started, and I felt that I might depend
upon them. C. told me that as soon as I had hooked my fish he had
looked at his watch, and that I had now had him on for an hour and
twenty minutes. This greatly astonished me, as I had not realised
how the time had gone. But it was nevertheless the fact, and I
felt that we must do something to stir the fish. We accordingly
decided to move a little way up-stream. C. had hardly begun to
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