20 FLY FISHING 



getting less, there was a great and sudden boil in 

 the water, one of my flies was seized most un- 

 expectedly, and I knew that either a salmon or 

 grilse was hooked. The river at this point was 

 not very wide. There were two alder bushes 

 growing on the bank, one above and the other 

 below me, over which no rod could be passed, 

 but the space in between them must have been 

 quite 200 yards of still water, and the fish being 

 about in the middle of this stretch, there was 

 no immediate cause for dreading a catastrophe. 

 But there were formidable difficulties : one was, 

 that there was no shallow water to which the 

 fish could be taken ; another, that the bank was 

 steep and fringed with rushes ; and a third was, 

 that I had only a landing net, not large or 

 strong, and with a weak handle. There came on 

 me a grim consciousness that the whole affair 

 must be very long, and that the most difficult 

 part of all would be at the end, not in playing 

 the fish, but in landing it. By slow degrees 

 the fish came under control of the rod, but the 

 nearer he could be brought the more were 

 matters complicated by the rushes at the edge. 

 Time after time he passed under my eyes, 



