A LIVELY FISH. 19 



hissing through the water then he sprang into 

 the air again and again, a splendid male fish a 

 twenty-pounder at least, fresh from the sea, as 

 bright as silver, and with a distinct semicircular 

 seal-bite on his side, just underneath the dorsal 

 fin. This I noticed several times. Well, I 

 managed to keep above him, and played him up 

 and down the pool for nearly a quarter of an hour, 

 Simon in the meantime creeping cautiously 

 along the edge, gaff in hand, and eagerly watch- 

 ing for an opportunity to perform his part in the 

 ceremony. At last I tried to coax the fish within 

 his reach, but he was still too lively, and the water 

 too deep just under the bank, for the boy to clip 

 him there, so, after a few ineffectual attempts, 

 I turned his head down stream. This proceeding 

 would, of course, have soon reduced him to 



if he has previously raised him unsuccessfully two or three times 

 yet I never could share the feelings of some anglers of my- 

 acquaintance who aver that they would then willingly hand over 

 the rod to a less fastidious sportsman, and that the subsequent 

 contest, and even the landing of your fish, are comparatively unin- 

 teresting. Such a proceeding appears to me to be precisely analo- 

 gous to the conduct of a master of hounds, who, while hunting his 

 own pack, would, immediately after finding his first fox, call them 

 off in quest of a second, thus completely ignoring the pleasures of 

 the chase, the glorious excitement of the first burst, and all those 

 "moving accidents by flood and field" that constitute the great 

 charm of fox-hunting, and in which the true salmon-fisher equally 

 participates. 



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