THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 1 5 1 



"Bad business that, Patrick?" I suggested shame- 

 facedly. 



" Och, and did ye miss that same, yer hornier?" he asked 

 with a magnificently assumed expression of surprise. 



The salmon of Loch Gill are not as a rule large. The 

 lake trout, which take the fly well up to the end of June and 

 July, are both large and numerous ; perch of about half a 

 pound weight the boys and girls catch by the bushel, by 

 fishing over the boat with a simple piece of string and hook, 

 weighted with a pebble and baited with worms. The pike 

 also are abundant, much too abundant to please the keepers, 

 who in the spawning season shoot them without mercy. 

 There were two parties of pike fishermen out on the day of 

 ray visit. I would not care to commit myself to details, 

 but I should think each boat had not less than a dozen rods 

 sticking over its gunwales, elevated at an angle of forty 

 degrees into the air so as to allow of all the lines trailing 

 without fouling. Every now and then we could hear the 

 whizz of the winch, and would pause to see the pike hauled 

 in hand over hand. 'We had a nice heap in the bottom of 

 our own boat when we landed at Pat's cabin that night, but 

 what was one rod amongst so many ? Pat seemed to think 

 I took too low a view of life. He wished me to try for a 

 big fish, and nothing but a big one. He persisted in the 

 wish. Now, I have one invariable theory on this head, and 

 I gave him the benefit of it. 



" Pat," I said Johnsonianly, " I fish for sport, not gross 

 weight. I would rather any day catch half a dozen 

 'moderately sized fish than one large one." 



The man, it was plain, considered me an ass, but he merely 

 (looked up in his provoking way at the sky, and whistled 



