MAY 81 



being over in three minutes. The cause of the strange 

 behaviour of this fish was then revealed : he had taken 

 the bob-fly, and the tail-fly had imbedded itself just in 

 front of the anal fin. 



Mention of a reel in salmon-fishing brings to mind a 

 tragi-comedy enacted in the summer of 1902 in the 

 Logen, usually known as the Sand river because it 

 enters the sea near the village of Sand in the Sands 

 Fjord. Our party consisted of three rods my host, 



who was an experienced salmon-fisher, B , who was 



making his first essay in the craft, and myself. The 

 Logen is a river of about the same volume (in summer) 

 as the Tay. Three or four hundred yards above the 

 tide it plunges over the Sand Forss, a splendid cascade, 

 less obstacle than it looks to the ascent of salmon. 

 Between the forss and the sea lies the Aasen pool, a 

 reach of broad, deep water with a tidy current through 

 it, a noted resting-place for heavy fish. It is not good 

 water for the fly, the fish lying too deep. Personally, 

 having no skill with any lure except the fly, I only 

 killed two salmon in Aasen during my visit, although 

 it was swarming with large fish ; but my companions 

 did much execution there with the prawn. 



B , though a neophyte, had a very effective outfit 



of brand new tackle split-cane rods of the shiniest, 

 deep-bosomed reels, and japanned-tin boxes stored with 

 almost every imaginable device for the deception of 

 salmon. On the first day that his beat was on Aasen, 

 he mounted a prawn, and was taken in the usual 

 manner of fishing that pool in a boat along the left 

 bank. He had not gone very far before he was into a 

 F 



