How to Fish for Salmon, 23 



When a salmon, being hooked, after a minute or 

 so begins jobbing and shaking your line — a most 

 unpleasant feeling, which sends a kind of nervous 

 dread through you — nine cases out of ten on exami- 

 nation it is found that he is hooked in the upper 

 jaw, leaving his gills full play, and so he is able by 

 this manoeuvre sometimes to lose the hold, or break 

 the hook if in the bone, but often it does the con- 

 trary — it tightens the hold. The most killing place 

 (when the hook is well fast) is in the lower jaw. 

 The strain of the line prevents in a great measure 

 the free current of water through the gills, and the 

 fish becomes suffocated ; a curious instance of this 

 occurred to a friend with whom I was fishing. He 

 hooked a fresh-run salmon of 16 lbs., and to his 

 astonishment, after a rapid whirl of the reel, and a 

 fight of five minutes, the fish came up on his side 

 and was soon on the bank. He found the hook 

 had gone into both jaws, thus entirely closing the 

 mouth and suffocating the fish. Something of the 

 same kind occurred to myself. I had hooked a good 

 fish, had a fearful fight to prevent him getting under 

 some snags lying deep at the upper part of the pool, 

 and in the last struggle, when he was well beat, in 

 keeping him on the top of the water, I nearly lost 

 him from his pertinacity to get down to where he 

 knew he could break me, and I had to gaff him in 

 a very ticklish place. After killing him I threw 



