246 FISHING IN AMERICAN WATERS. 



ed by fresh-water parasites, return to sea to recuperate and 

 fatten preparatory to another visit up the river to their 

 spawning-grounds. 



One day, while fishing the pool below the falls, I felt a 

 tug, and as my reel spun round whir ! whir ! ! whir ! ! ! I 

 raised my rod to a perpendicular, when the reel still con- 

 tinuing I saw three leaps at once, each fish leaping fasten- 

 ed to my fly. Thought I, " If you make three leaps at once 

 there is small chance of saving you," and so it resulted. By 

 the manoeuvre, it formed a bight in my line and unhooked. 



My captures were very fair that day, and it is a remarka- 

 bly interesting pool to fish ; but the river was so low, and 

 its waters so transparent, that I could count scores of salmon 

 lying in pairs by the rocks, awaiting a rise in the river to help 

 them surmount the chute. 



The next morning I fished the same pool from the opposite 

 side of the river, and in response to my second or third cast 

 I hooked a large salmon, which ran out to the middle of the 

 river and took nearly all the line off my reel, when it made 

 a leap about twenty feet up the river, and several feet above 

 the water, and the swiftness of the current made such a bight 

 in my line that its weight parted the single leader, though I 

 dipped the point of the rod as I saw the leap coming. As 

 my line came back I felt despondent at losing such a beauti- 

 ful fish ; but I venture to state that no angler, under the cir- 

 cumstances, could have saved it. Such is salmon-angling. 

 You must use a single gut for the half of your casting-line 

 toward the end, and tie your fly on a single gut, or you will 

 be regarded as a coarse angler, and all your large scores will 

 count you naught as an artist at angling. Here are salmon 

 in a broad, rapid river, large enough to try the strongest 

 striped-bass tackle ; and yet they are to be taken on a single 

 gut, and played from half an hour to three hours to bring to 

 gaff. Add to the delicacy of play necessitated from the light- 

 ness of tackle the fact, also, that the mouth of a salmon is very 

 tender. These are points to be noted if you would angle for 



