THE AUTUMN SALMON 221 



statistician has our hearty respect. When he talks of 

 netting in narrow waters and its evils he talks of the 

 thing that is. Even the curtailment of autumn rod- 

 fishing is a topic of legitimate discussion, academically 

 and at a suitable season ; but just now the river calls, 

 and his voice is drowned in the roar of waters. 



Heaven send that the waters do roar, by the way, 

 when we come to them, not, as at this moment, like 

 sucking doves, nor, as last year, like sabre-toothed 

 monsters (which I conceive to have had a particularly 

 full-throated note), but moderately, like some half- 

 grown lion of Afric. Then shall the fish be on the 

 alert, running neither too much nor too little, showing 

 themselves from time to time (the sign may be bad, as 

 some say, but it is at least a comfort to know that 

 they are there), and taking well under water with the 

 decision that means business. A too full river in 

 autumn is a sorry state of things, for the fish simply 

 run a race for the head waters, and the angler has 

 nothing to do but look on. Whatever the eyes with 

 which they regard the sport, hostile or friendly, all 

 will admit that it is not a race meeting ; when all you 

 see of the competitors is an occasional long shape 

 slithering sideways on a shallow, you cannot even 

 wager on the result. Just one chance of stopping a 

 fish is there one slender chance. Station yourself by 

 a narrow rapid which you can cover easily, and flog 

 away in the quieter water at its side with a two-inch 

 Wilkinson or Silver Doctor, or some such visible fly, 

 or, more likely still, with some glittering spinning bait 

 a copper and silver spoon-bait one and a half inches 

 long shows up rarely in heavy water. But on some 



