A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



There are still salmon in the Erne, for in July of 1903 I 

 was fortunate enough to kill seventeen fish — seven salmon and 

 ten grilse — in seven and a half days' fishing, the largest of 

 which was a 28-pounder. 



So much for salmon-fishing memories. I now pass to trout 

 recollections. Fishing, as I have already said, is a sporting 

 relaxation that only seems to grow in fascination, and in the 

 hold it exercises over its devotees, with the growth of years. 

 There are times when it is good for a man to be alone with 

 Nature, when the best holiday he can take in this busy, stren- 

 uous city-living age of ours is, now and then, to pass out into 

 the wilderness. And by the wilderness, if it be well chosen, 

 I mean the lonely moorland loch or the side of the mountain- 

 stream, where man's only companions are the curlew and the 

 plover overhead, the natural wild life of the green forest, or, 

 maybe, the wild deer on the open hillside. Around him are 

 the everlasting hills, and in his ears the soothing, murmuring 

 noises of wind and tree and stream. Then, amid such sur- 

 roundings, give our lonely fisherman a trout-rod to handle, 

 and, as objects of pursuit and capture with cunning fly and 

 light-thrown line, the speckled fish of loch or burn, and the 

 picture is complete. 



It has been my fortune to enjoy for a space all these con- 

 ditions of a perfect fishing holiday in the heart of the Wyoming 

 Rockies, and the recollection of that holiday is with me still. 

 In the year 1898 I was in Wyoming on ranching and other 

 business, but managed to snatch six weeks for a hunting-trip 

 to the head of Green River, which rises in some of the wildest 



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