136 THE SALMON. 



article of line ; hardly a manoeuvre he practises, "seu 

 ratio dederit seu sors objecerit" but is based upon 

 that fallacy too much line out. Of course there 

 are situations in which you have no alternative but 

 to trust to the effect of unlimited concession and 

 give unlimited rope, in the hope that the fish will 

 hang himself. You may be standing upon an iso- 

 lated, slippery rock you may be fishing upon one 

 side of an island when your fish perversely runs up 

 or down the other you may be unable to follow 

 him through the particular arch of a bridge he 

 affects; but all these contingencies must be endured 

 or met as they arise. I have said somewhere, in 

 talking of riding at a fence, that there are some 

 fences you must ride at slowly, some you must 

 ride at rapidly, but that there are none that you 

 should ride at with a loose rein. I had almost 

 said the same with regard to the line holding a 

 salmon, but there is a case in which a loose, nay 

 the loosest, line affords the best chance of killing 

 your fish ; this is when the pool in which you are 

 fishing empties itself by a rapid, perhaps impass- 

 able fall or torrent. At the very brink of this, on 

 the " torrent's smoothness ere it dash below," your 

 fish will frequently pause, hang motionless for 

 several seconds, uncertain whether he should bear 

 here above " those ills he has/' or seek below those 



