BARE HOOKS 243 



choose to have a go at a salmon at a little distance 

 from you, as having a way of your own, I will tell 

 you what will probably happen from this freak also. 

 The stroke will drive back the boat, and you and 

 the fish will part company. You may have struck 

 him, perhaps not impossible that ; but your in- 

 tended victim twists off in a moment, and says as 

 plainly as a salmon can speak, " levro 1'incommodo." 



I should observe, that in burning the water by 

 night there is no time to fix every fish to the ground, 

 and that they are then most usually lifted quickly ; 

 indeed, as the boat falls gradually down the stream, 

 it generally comes over them conveniently enough. 



To these various methods of taking fish, I must 

 add the destruction by means of rake-hooks. The 

 tackle is very simple : it consists of two strong 

 hooks, about two or three inches long, tied back to 

 back, and fastened to twisted gut, on which are put 

 five or six large shot, at equal distances from each 

 other. The fisherman, with a strong rod, throws 

 the line, with these bare hooks attached to it, about 

 a foot beyond any salmon that he may discover lying, 

 and then with a sudden jerk draws the hook into him 

 if he can, and gets him to the land if he is able.* 



* " Snatching," as this method of catching fish is called, is on 

 the whole the meanest form of poaching ever devised. It is, of 

 course, illegal now, but it is still very widely practised on rivers all 

 over the country. Some sort of colourable imitation of a legitimate 

 lure is usually employed, such as a double-hooked fly with lead in 

 its body, which will sink quickly. While salmon continue to be the 

 valuable rarities they are it is pretty hopeless to attempt to eradicate 

 this evil. If they were as plentiful as Nature intended them to be 

 fair fishing would become the rule and snatching would be generally 

 accounted disreputable. (ED.) 



