ON ANGLING. 135 



salmon cast it will go through the grass like an elephant 

 through jungle — but it may equally well strike on a stone, 

 in which case the point and barb are very likely to be 

 broken off. This is a very good thing to happen when 

 you are first practising and are more likely to catch your 

 own ear than any salmon, but it is a sad moment when 

 you draw back the line without any resistance at the end, after 

 a good " pluck " in the water from what you are sure must 

 have been a very large fish, and discover that the very 

 simple reason why it was a pluck et prater ea nihil is that 

 the hook-point had been broken off in a rock behind 

 you a cast or two previously. Those are the moments that 

 almost palliate the blasphemy of the old angler exclaiming 

 that "Job's" patience was never really tried, because the 

 long-suffering patriarch was not a fisherman. 



The most common, so that we may almost call it 

 normal, throw of the salmon fly is that which takes it out 

 at an angle of something like forty-five degrees down-stream 

 from the castor. It pitches there, away out in the water, 

 and comes swimming round in the current towards the 

 caster's own bank, presuming that it is from the bank 

 that he is throwing. I believe that I have hooked most 

 of the salmon that have come to my fly during my 

 life rather soon after the fly has gone into the water, 

 in this kind of throw, and before it has gone round very 

 far towards the nearer bank. But, at the same time, 

 I believe that if we could know how many salmon, in 

 comparison with the few that actually seize the fly, 

 pay it the compliment of following it round in the water, 

 keeping their noses just a foot or so below, as if in doubt or 

 wonder whether or no to take a pluck at it — if we only had an 

 idea of the number of times that this tantalising process 

 goes on in comparison with the comparatively few and 

 entirely blessed occasions on which the fish does take a really 

 good hold of the fly — if we only knew this, I say, salmon- 

 fishing would, I think, be a sport more exciting than human 

 nature, as commonly constituted, could be expected to bear. 

 I say this because it has happened to me so often, going 

 down the bank below the point at which a friend was fishing, 

 so as to be able to watch what went on in the water at the 



