332 SALMON AND TROUT. 



hooks himself. If your fly be not hastily plucked away, a trout 

 who has merely nibbled at the wings or tail may at a second or 

 third rise 'go the entire animal.' 



If you hook a fish foul and the symptoms are not to be 

 mistaken risk your tackle rather than slacken your hold. He 

 will never dislodge the hook unless by your timid handling. I 

 once hooked a three-pounder near the tail luckily on an open 

 stretch of water and held on to him till in his struggles down 

 stream he swung in to the shore and was cleverly netted by a 

 friendly looker-on, who had continually shrieked to me to * give 

 him line.' He dropped off the hook the instant he was netted, 

 and I showed my friend with pride that there was a small scale 

 on the point of the hook below the barb. The fish had been 

 literally killed by the hold of the mere tip of the steel on his 

 tough skin. 



But I am running riot in old reminiscences. Happily, 

 they are at least cheerful and blameless records, and raise no 

 'accusing shades of hours gone by.' No doubt, the fly fisher 

 has what Mrs. Ramsbottom calls his ' little Piccadillies ;' he does 

 sometimes fish a little beyond his liberty, and perhaps on a 

 very bad day when he has landed a trout barely up to the mark in 

 point of length gives the benefit of the doubt to the creel and not 

 to the fish. But on the whole I have found my brother anglers 

 worthy men and pleasant companions, with whom acquaintance 

 readily ripened into friendship. Their quiet converse with 

 nature seems to smooth down asperities of character, and they 

 move ' kindly men among their kind.' There are few of them, 

 too, who have not during their devious rambles noted some- 

 thing in the field of Natural History which they can impart in 

 conversation. Speaking as one of the fraternity, I think the 

 caution we most need is the time-honoured Ne quid minis. 

 The fly fisher's art is so interesting and so many-sided that its 

 votaries are too apt to fancy themselves justified in making it a 

 business instead of a recreation. I have known very clever 

 men who devoted some eight months of the year to a series of 

 ' fishings,' ' and to salmon gave up what was meant for mankind.' 



