FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 dream of every young salmon fisher (and it remains the unrealized dream 

 of many an old one) to kill a 30 lb. salmon ; and when that dream has been 

 fulfilled he hankers after a forty -pounder. It is not a very rational desire, 

 for these very heavy fish seldom offer such a spirited resistance as an 

 eighteen- or twenty-pounder. It generally takes longer to get one of them 

 ashore ; but the conflict is usually more stubborn than fierce. Nevertheless, 

 there is something in the contrast between a thread of single gut and the 

 massive proportions of a great salmon that causes the successful angler 

 to feel that he has accomplished rather a fine feat in landing a monster. 

 Yet he has nothing to thank but his luck. My old fishing book bears witness 

 that I had been fishing more or less for thirty-eight years, during which 

 I killed 563 salmon, before I landed a fish of 30 lb. Three times during that 

 period I missed my opportunity. Two of these occasions were on the Tweed, 

 when, having to go to Edinburgh for meetings, I invited a lady to occupy 

 my beat. The first of these ladies gave me the impression of thinking she 

 was doing me a favour by accepting it. She fished for exactly one hour and 

 a quarter in the Haly Weil at Bemersyde, and returned home with a salmon 

 of 35 lb. The other lady, wholly unskilled, fished the Willow Bush at Mer- 

 toun for me and landed one of 32 lb. — an ugly red cock, it is true, but still 

 a heavier fish than had ever fallen to my lot. 



The third occasion was in Norway, on the romantic Rauma, where I had 

 the pleasure of gaffing a beautiful salmon of 33 lb. for a friend to whom I 

 had lent my rod for an hour or so. 



Talking of the Rauma brings to mind another incident on that noble 

 river — ^but when an old salmon fisher takes to yarning he is too apt to 

 presume upon the good-nature of his company. Readers, however, have 

 this advantage over listeners, that they can turn off the tap of narrative 

 at pleasure; wherefore, should anybody not care to hear how the spell 

 that had lain upon me for so many years was broken, and how I succeeded 

 in landing a big fish at last, let him skip the rest of this chapter. 



We went to Norway in 1904 earlier than usual^^arlier, as it turned out, 

 than there was any need for — only to find the Rauma far lower than it 

 should be at the beginning of June, for the weather was cold, the snow 

 had not come away properly, and there were hardly any fish running. 

 But the first time I fished the famous Foss of Aarnhoe I saw two very large 

 fish rise at the very tail of the pool. Nothing else was moving in that great 

 tumbling basin except this stately pair, just where the current, broad and 

 smooth, sweeps towards the rapids below. 

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