SALMON FISHING IN THE SPEY 



" Not too hard ! Not too hard ! Do not be too hard on 

 him ! Reel up ! . . . reel up ! Be canny, now ! " 



And at last the fish was gaffed, and lay gleaming on the 

 bank. Surely that was the happiest day of my life, unless it 

 was that other on which, two years ago, I landed nine salmon 

 to my own rod. Lady Bernard Gordon-Lennox, fishing two 

 pools below me, landed a fine forty-pounder. I had gone 

 in for quantity and she for quality, and I hardly know 

 which of us was the happier. My best season, by the way, 

 was that of 191 1, when I landed forty-one salmon in twelve 

 days' fishing. 



And now I am going to relate an incident which the 

 charitable reader will probably disbelieve ; and, indeed, I am 

 tempted to recall it only because it seems to me to show that 

 a boat rowed across a pool does not, as so often stated, frighten 

 the fish in it. My sister. Lady Percy, was being rowed across the 

 river to fish down on the opposite side, when, about half-way 

 across, a fifteen-pounder, as it afterwards proved to be, flopped 

 out of the water right into her lap. She was taken by surprise, 

 but managed to clasp the slippery intruder tight in her arms 

 till she could kill it with the " doctor." ^ 



My sister had another curious experience which may 

 also, perhaps, afford satisfaction to the sceptical. She had 

 played a fish long and carefully, but could get little control 

 over it. At last, however, it was gaffed ; but when the 

 gillie went to take the fly out of its mouth, there was no fly 



^ See cases of fishes jumping into boats in Lord Desborough's chapter on tarpon- 

 fishing. — Ed. 



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