128 PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 



to keep out a straight line without constant cast- 

 ing. Becoming weary with this sort of perpetual 

 motion, I allowed my line to slacken and my fly to 

 perambulate at its own sweet will. While they 

 were thus floating in a circle, the fly out of sight, 

 I felt a slight tug and began to reel up leisurely,, 

 annoyed that my lure had, as I supposed, been 

 taken by a trout. Every movement, for half a. 

 minute, seemed to confirm this impression, and I 

 had stopped reeling to give expression to my dis- 

 appointment, when the fish started in gallant 

 salmon style, leaped his full length out of water, 

 and gave me all I could do for three hours and 

 twenty minutes before he was brought to gaff, and 

 then he was only struck by a chance blow as he 

 was rushing, in full life, past my canoe in swift 

 water. What I supposed, at first, to be merely a 

 two or three-pound trout proved to be a twenty- 

 seven-pound salmon. If I had been in shoal 

 water when I first reeled him up to within twenty 

 feet of my canoe, I might have ended his career in 

 ten minutes. The hook had struck him at some 

 callous point, and he followed the gentle lead I 

 gave him without sense of pain or danger, and 

 only made a dash when he saw the canoe with its 

 threatening surroundings. 



In gaffing this fish while on the run in swift 

 water, my Indian guide proved himself an expert 



