390 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



the obstacle, he storms the wall with a commanding impetus, 

 with dash of the utmost desire, using with incredible agility 

 the fulcrum both of rock and water. The ascending salmon 

 also requires water of a certain temperature. If the snows 

 have melted in the hills and are coming down in curdled 

 rigour the salmon wait in the sea till the utter chill is gone. 

 They wait if the wind is driving Atlantic combers against the 

 mouth of the river, and they wait also, as the best prophets 

 find, from instinctive senses of fitness which no man can 

 penetrate. The leaping of the falls and so-called salmon- 

 ladders, set to make feasible the more difficult and impassable 

 falls, is one of the supreme sights ; but for sheer joyfulness 

 it is perhaps surpassed by the preliminary leap or two taken 

 in the first pool when the difficulties are surmounted. It is 

 often the introduction to a straight and clean run from the 

 mouth to the lake or upper reaches, the salmon's version of 

 ' altiora peto.' Fishermen on the lower reaches may have the 

 pleasure of the sight long before they have the pleasure of 

 feeling the fish on the line. Quaint devices are tried, 

 sometimes with conspicuous success, to prevent this race. 

 Over the fish's sense of hearing and colour sense a great 

 controversy rages, but there is no doubt about the salmon's 

 nose and sight. Something may be done to stop the mad 

 race up the river by swinging in the river any considerable 

 object of an unusual sort ; but there is nothing so effective as 

 a piece of rotting fish swaying in midstream. It gives the 

 salmon pause, and that pause, which may be prolonged, is the 

 fisherman's opportunity. 



How many sportsmen say that there is no pleasure in 

 sport comparable with the landing of the first clean-run fish 

 of the year. There are men so eager that they will thrash the 

 water for many hours of many days before any sign of a 

 salmon has been seen. It is odds that in this while they will 



