356 FLY FISHING AND SPINNING 



in to land, I attempted to move him ; but for fifteen minutes 

 he lay like a rock, sulking, if ever a fish sulked, and only a 

 surge now and again told me I had a fish, and not a world, 

 on my line. I might have turned him down-stream, but 

 my Norwegian strongly advised me not to do so, as danger 

 existed but a short distance below. So it was a case of 

 wait. 



Meanwhile, my eyes were beginning to play me 

 tricks : the high pine-clad banks commenced running 

 up-stream at express rates, whenever I lifted my eyes from 

 the rapidly running river at the spot where my fish lay, and 

 on turning them on any motionless object, the same curious 

 optical delusion occurred. My gillie, Isaac, now planted a 

 stone or two below the salmon, and after fifteen minutes' 

 sulk, he made a move up-stream, and then a dash across the 

 river, we having to follow in the boat for some 300 yards. 

 He then came down again and we got him into a big back- 

 water, in which I managed to keep him, and finally, after a 

 very anxious struggle, we had him beautifully gaffed, and 

 lying on the bank. 



He took forty-five minutes to kill, and out of that time he 

 sulked for fifteen minutes among some dangerous rocks in a 

 deep run, about 70 yards from the bank on which we finally 

 landed him. I also killed two fish over 30 pounds with the 

 fly (Jock Scott and Popham), besides losing another very 

 big one, and finished off the day by killing a 22-pound 

 clean-run salmon with many sea-lice on him. It was a 

 coincidence that Mr. Guest should have killed in the same 

 pool, on July 2oth, 1894, a 64-pound salmon, the length 

 of which was 4 feet 3J inches, but with all other 

 measurements similar to the one just described. Mr. 

 Guest's fish was almost the biggest salmon killed on a 

 rod at that time. 



I killed on this water, in the preceding year, on September 



