122 ROD & CREEL 



it would have been all off early in the game. It seemed as if 

 that fish would never stop and, to make matters worse, I was 

 standing in very swift water, among a lot of big boulders and 

 was slow in getting back out on to the beach, so that by the 

 time I got going down the bank my fish had just reached the 

 top of the Rock Reach and, though he had slowed up, was 

 still going. Fifty yards further down he worked by a succes- 

 sion of short pulls and then stopped, made two swirls on the 

 surface, but not enough to get an idea of his size, and then 

 came up stream again within a few feet of the opposite shore 

 with a whole lot of slack line trailing behind him, as I had never 

 succeeded in getting down to anywhere near to him. Some 

 little distance up there was a great jagged boulder about ten 

 feet out from the opposite shore ; it stood a good two feet out of 

 the water and to my horror the fish passed inside it. Now, if 

 I had managed to get in all my slack line, as I had been fran- 

 tically trying to do, that little silk line would have cut like a 

 piece of cotton, but there was still a lot of slack and, for some 

 unaccountable reason, that fish was kind enough to change his 

 mind when he had passed some fifteen feet above the boulder, 

 as he came to the surface and again just broke water, as if to 

 show me what he could do if he wanted to be nasty. Then 

 instead of going on up and cutting the line he just dropped 

 back the way he came up and the reel was soon singing again 

 to another run down stream. By the time that run was over I 

 knew he must be well hooked and that it was simply a question 

 of going easily and not putting too much strain on the line, so 

 I just kept up a slight pressure and let the fish sulk or run 

 as fast as he pleased. To end this yarn, I landed that fish away 

 up stream only a little lower than where I hooked him, after 

 an hour's fight, and, of course, was disappointed in his size; he 

 weighed sixteen and a half pounds, whereas I had made up 

 my mind I was at last going to get one of twenty pounds. 

 However, he was a perfect fish, absolutely clean run and as 

 silvery as a new dollar, so I had no cause to complain. About 

 this time my friend decided that a horse would be useful and 

 left me to get one, and I sat down for a well-earned rest. 



Probably by this time you will think the end of this "fish 

 yarn" has come, but there is still one little bit to tell. The 

 horse was a long time in arriving and it began to get dusk and 

 I got tired of waiting, so I got up, went to the tail of the pool 

 and made a few more casts and had yet another strike from 

 what felt like another heavy fish, but the line had had enough, 

 and at the second pull broke at the swivel and the fish was gone 

 and my little brass Devon too. 



Now this will show you how utterly impossible it is to 

 know what fish are going to do and how foolish it is to despair 

 even under the most hopeless condition, so if ever you go to 



