200 Recreations of a Sportsman 



He was a true prophet; I had the salmon on 

 the quarter, was turning him toward the place 

 where the net should have been, but Bill had 

 not picked it up he knew the fish and I did 

 not. There was never a better illustration, as 

 at that moment the fish saw the boat, or me, 

 or Bill smiling, and made the most effective 

 rush of the play, and was rolling over two hun- 

 dred feet away on the surface, trying to jump; 

 then bearing around in the arc of a great circle 

 just below the surface, he went plunging down, 

 down, the reel giving inch by inch, the click 

 protesting, fairly groaning under the pressure I 

 was giving the thumb brake. 



There appears at times to be a decided dif- 

 ference between the strength of a nine-thread line 

 on the tester and attached to a fish ; the line tests 

 well, theoretically, but something often happens 

 w r hen the thumb that plays on the brake becomes 

 panic-stricken and presses too hard, and it was 

 just this that I feared. There was something about 

 this mad leaping and rushing fish that aroused 

 one's enthusiasm, and added strength and force 

 to the arm, and so the mistake is made, just the 

 mistake I feared, as I was winning. I had the 

 splendid game on the run and it was coming 

 up in great circles. The lust of conquest was 

 in my throat, and as some non-angling clergyman 

 once said in a burst of pathos, " murder shone 

 green in the angler's eye." 



