SALMON-FISHING 



sluggish, pull at him sideways and make him move, always keeping as 

 near him — that is, with as short a line — as possible. The most dangerous 

 manoeuvre a salmon can execute is to run downstream with the reel 

 spinning, and then turn sharply to run upstream, causing a heavy bight 

 in the line. If he leaps at the end of that manoeuvre, the resistance of the 

 submerged line may snap the gut or the bagged line may catch round a 

 boulder and the fish escape. 



It is well known to those who have experienced the difference that a 

 salmon in a Norwegian river will show much wilder fight than the 

 generality of fish of similar weight in British waters. It is not certain 

 whether the Scandinavian fish are really more vigorous than the others 

 (it is certain that a 1 lb. trout in a Highland loch takes far more killing 

 than one of double its weight in an English chalk stream), or whether 

 the greater severity of the conflict is owing to the superior weight and 

 force of the current. The lower portion of the Spey is the only British water 

 which the present writer has fished equal to a typical Norwegian river 

 in volume and violence; and there, if a heavy salmon means to go down 

 and gets his broadside against the stream, it tests both wind and limb 

 to keep on terms with him. A friend of mine, fishing the Norwegian Rauma, 

 happened to hook a pine-log floating down in midstream. Being un- 

 willing to sacrifice a good casting line and fly he held on and followed 

 it, trusting to the chance of getting that log into some slack water. It 

 took him down the distance of a full mile, and broke away in the end. 

 My friend said he had never had such a severe and checkless run with the 

 wildest fish. 



As a rule, it is expedient to deal vigorously with a fish from the moment 

 it is hooked. If the hook has taken but a slight hold, the chance of landing 

 the fish is not improved by prolonging the struggle through gentle 

 handling. Suaviter in modo is right in offering the ^y—fortiter in re im- 

 mediately it is taken. The only exception to this arises when a fish is 

 hooked in a dangerous place, as on the brink of a fall over which there is 

 risk of his going. Here tender dealing at first may succeed in leading 

 the salmon away from the point of danger, when rough treatment would 

 frighten him into the thick of it. There is a fall of this nature on the 

 Camisky water of the Lochy, above Torrs Castle, where the fish may take 

 the fly where the water is actually sloping to the abyss. Goodness only 

 knows what would be the result of a fish going over that cataract; such 

 a contingency never befel me in that place; though it did in a similar 



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