FISHING AS A SPORT 



the sportsman to be very wide awake if he is not to lose 

 the catch ; he must sneak every half-inch of line he can, 

 and so proportionately reduce the chances of the salmon's 

 tumbling across the slack of it in its fall; for such an 

 accident seldom fails to jerk the prisoner free again ; in 

 any case, if it jumps up repeatedly, it is pretty safe sooner 

 or later to free itself. 



But with all its changes and chances, and in spite of 

 cold unspeakable and wettings that suggest rheumatic 

 fever, the sportsman to whom the choice is open Norway 

 or Britain will not hesitate to decide in favour of the 

 former. 



Salmon-fishing is a sport full of excitement, but many 

 people say there is another more exciting still. Since 

 facilities for quick travel have increased, sportsmen have 

 been diligently seizing the opportunity of fishing or 

 hunting for game whose habitat is so far removed from 

 their own homes that at one time the pursuit of it by 

 Englishmen was only dreamt of when they happened to 

 be "on their travels." A few generations back, to go 

 fishing in Norway or Russia was looked upon as pushing 

 sport to the limits of wicked waste of time, on account 

 of the distance ; and a person who talked of going even 

 to America for shooting, would have been regarded as 

 a maniac. But all that is changed, and now the man 

 who can afford the requisite time and money is allowed 

 to plan a fishing-trip to the Gulf of Mexico and round 

 about Florida Strait without having his sanity called in 

 question by his friends. To run over to America to fish 



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