Wanderings of a Naturalist 



noon sun breaks through the quickly moving clouds and 

 shines brightly down on the river. 



This fine pool is given up for the day, for its fish are 

 obviously not on the take, and a small pool just above is 

 casted over. Almost at once a heavy fish takes the fly. Its 

 appearance is doubtful, but one hopes for the best, and the 

 fish, getting well away with the current, rushes clear out of 

 the pool and down two hundred yards of heavy water before 

 being brought to the shore. It is not until it has been tailed 

 that the worst is confirmed — a heavy 20 lb. "kelt," or spawned 

 female salmon, and so to be returned to its element; the 

 angler by this time almost as exhausted as the fish itself. 



The short February day is drawing to a close. The sink- 

 ing sun is obscured by hurrying clouds, sweeping across 

 from the north, and gradually the hills are enveloped in 

 mist. 



About four o'clock the last pool, broad and placid, is 

 reached. On it is swimming a tufted duck, not a common 

 bird by any means on the Dee — but not a sign of a fish. 

 Half-way down the pool a faint touch — these early February 

 salmon rarely rush at the fly like the late spring fish — and 

 one is into a small and lively fish. Surely a clean salmon 

 this time. Its strength is rapidly spent — a bad sign — and 

 the fish turns out to be another kelt. This is the uncertainty 

 of early fishing; one can never be sure whether the fish 

 hooked is clean-run or not, and, as a general rule, the kelts 

 exceed the clean fish at this season by three to one. 



At the tail of the pool another salmon takes the fly, but 

 he comes short, and in the gathering dusk one prepares to 

 leave the river bank. 



But with the last cast of the day a salmon, flashing across 

 the pool, seizes the fly. They are both active and powerful, 

 these small February fish, and it is not without a struggle that 

 he is brought to the shore — a perfectly clean-run fish of 8 lbs. 



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