A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



that salmon might be on the move. Only the day before I 

 had risen a fish to the fly in the pool below the house, and after 

 vainly waiting for the cloud which would not come to veil the 

 bright sunlight, had, just before lunch, thrown a prawn, by 

 means of a Malloch reel, far across the stream and above his 

 lie, and so hooked and killed an i8-pounder. Next midday 

 found me on the upper beat, which always held a few good fish. 

 Standing on the steep bank above the top pool, Hans (my 

 Norske boatman and gaffer) and I could see almost every rock 

 in the river bed, lit up by the bright rays of an August sun. 

 Hans shook his head. I took to worming for trout, caught 

 enough for the morrow's breakfast, and we then walked down 

 to the next pool below, where no bank overhung the stream. 



" Hans, I shall try a prawn." And so the Malloch reel was 

 produced ; a startlingly red, glycerine-shining prawn was by 

 Hans deftly put on the line along with six feet of single wire 

 trace, and bristling with three sets of triangles, and the boat 

 rowed up the shallow to the pool head. Hans was distinctly 

 depressed in demeanour, and perfunctory in his work at the 

 oar. It was obvious that he had no faith in the fishing. Never- 

 theless I had that sort of feeling or presentiment, not uncommon 

 with fishermen, that something was going to happen. And so 

 I took particular pains with every cast. The prawn flew forty 

 yards across and downstream, flopping quietly into the current 

 at the far side, and then went sailing round the pool. About 

 the fourth cast came a gentle draw. I raised my hand, and 

 thought I had hooked a rock. Presently the rock began to 

 move. The unlikely thing had happened. I had hooked a 



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