A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



there, and he found that the fish had been caught by the tail, 

 round the narrow portion of which the line had got twice 

 twisted. The hook was securely caught in the line, forming 

 a perfect slip-knot. This, of course, accounted for the diffi- 

 culty which my sister had in bringing the fish to the bank, 

 as it was able to fight with twice the ordinary strength and 

 staying power that it could have exercised if hooked in the 

 jaw. All anglers know the strength of a good fish foul-hooked, 

 and this reminds me that I have a confession to make about 

 a good fish that I hooked, as you might say, accidentally on 

 purpose. I was fishing in a pool close to the mouth of the 

 river, and had noticed a fish jump twice in the same spot. 

 This was quite close to my fly, and, when he jumped a third 

 time, I struck and hooked him. Now, as the salmon was 

 certainly not rising at the fly when hooked, this may perhaps 

 be regarded as unfair fishing, but anyway he gave me one of 

 the best runs I ever had. He was, in fact, the wildest salmon 

 I remember hooking. To begin with, he tore upstream as hard 

 as he could go. Then he changed his mind and bolted down- 

 stream, taking out the whole of my line, and apparently deter- 

 mined to get back to the sea, which was no great distance. 

 He certainly made straight for it, I following as best I could, 

 stumbling over big stones, through a backwater, over a railing, 

 and so back to the shingle, where at last, after half an hour 

 of this sort of thing, my gillie gaffed him in a shallow in mid- 

 stream. Then we found that I had hooked him in the 

 back fin ! 



Some of the angler's worst troubles arise from defects in 



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