354 SALMON AND TROUT. 



silver-bodied ' Bush-rangers,' as we used to call them, before I 

 was fast in a good fish. 



On another occasion, when the water was in a somewhat 

 similar condition, and, I am sorry to say, my legitimate efforts 

 were not crowned with success, I killed a salmon above the 

 mills, in the pool rejoicing in the somewhat profane appellation 

 of 'Jeannie's dam.' At this point, when a broad sweeping 

 flood showed the river to be anything but dammed, 



I sat me down to watch the waters flowing, 



and forget the sensation of defeat in a cigar. Whilst thus 

 occupied I noticed a large fish constantly rising in the same 

 spot, about fifteen or twenty yards from the bank indeed, 

 rising with such persistency as to suggest an idea that I has- 

 tened to put into practice, but on account of which, I need 

 hardly say, I have ever since suffered the pangs of remorse ! 

 Judging the distance of the rising fish as nearly as I could 

 by the eye, I kept making casts as close over him as possible. 

 Presently, as I had anticipated, the fish and my fly arrived at the 

 same point on the surface at the same moment, when, as Artemus 

 Ward would have said, ' by a dexterous movement of the body 

 he managed to bring his off pectoral fin into vigorous contact 

 with the barb of my fly-hook.' The contest was sharp, but not 

 short. My friend, a fish with the tide lice still on him, and 

 who eventually turned the scale at 15 Ibs., showing the most 

 furious indignation at the ungentlemanly treatment he had 

 received, rushing hither and thither, up and down stream, back 

 and across, over and under, in a way that was a ' caution.' He 

 gave me one of the warmest twenty minutes' work that I ever 

 remember. 



But this is a digression or rather a confession, which I 

 make, perhaps, with a view to ' absolution.' 



So shall my soul of conscience-prick have ease. . . 

 To return to worm fishing. 



