38 PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 



ening to the music of bird and brook and mountain 

 torrent, and in casting for speckled trout or silver 

 salmon in pool or rivulet, they will not err who 

 write them down as happier men than their neigh- 

 bors, and as all the better for this happiness. 



There is enough in the minor departments of 

 angling to render it attractive. Sea and lake, as 

 well as brook and river, afford pleasant pastime, 

 but salmon fishing is confessedly the highest round 

 in the ladder, whether because of the great weight, 

 strength and beauty of the fish, the skill required 

 to lure it to the fly, to strike it when lured, or to 

 kill it when struck. No other fish is so shy, so 

 kingly, or so full of game. To kill a thirty or 

 forty pound salmon, is to graduate with all the 

 honors. If but a comparatively few Americans, 

 masters of every other department of the art, have 

 attained unto this coveted dignity, it is from want 

 of opportunity rather than from want of skill. 

 We have no salmon rivers within our territory 

 (where the fish will take the fly) this side the 

 Rocky Mountains. Hence the great mass of our 

 anglers, however skilled and enthusiastic, have 

 deemed themselves to have reached the greatest 

 available elevation in the art when they have 

 killed a four, six, eight or ten pound trout. The 

 single step forward can only be taken by a journey 

 to Oregon or California, or by a trip to the Coast 



