CaOr^i*^ 



62 THREE FISH 



half-way across the stream. Forty yards above was 

 ticrt/. the big salmon leap, and some sixty perhaps below, a 



smaller fall with a very nasty run of boulders and 

 broken water. 



A man who had been trying hard for this fish, 

 without any luck, had gone up at five o'clock for tea. 

 My chance had come. I gave the fish a good rest of 

 nearly half an hour and then threw over him. It was 

 a poor, moth-eaten looking fly — the body of claret 

 with a twist of varnished tinsel, and a dirty speckled 

 wing. But I chose it for two good reasons : it was 

 the exact opposite of the fly my neighbour had been 

 using, and, better still, it had often brought me luck. 



At the very first cast I moved the fish, but he came 

 short ; at the second I saw nothing of him ; at the 

 I third there was a swirl, he took it under water, turned 

 and hooked himself. 



A good deal has been written about the proper 

 time to stike a salmon. It is all a waste of words. 

 A salmon, of course, moves more deliberately than a 

 trout, as becomes the heavier fish. Others have their 

 //. own experience, mine is this. Nine times out of ten 

 if you strike at a salmon you whip the fly out of his 

 mouth. Nine times out of ten, if you leave him alone 

 and he means taking it^ he will hook himself. " An 





