PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 193 



other of the multitude of rivers where salmon 

 gather. 



Happy beyond his fellows is the angler who has 

 the skill to " fix up " his own tackling, to tie his 

 own flies, to properly adjust his own reels, to make 

 up his own leaders, and to do whatever else is 

 necessary to be done to render him superior to 

 calamity and independent of all ordinary mishaps. 

 It took me many years to acquire this skill and 

 more years to command the leisure to render it 

 available. But even now, I am often obliged to 

 call in the aid of experts to do for me what (if I 

 could) I would find great pleasure in doing for 

 myself. The finest salmon-flies I ever saw were 

 made by our recent townsman, DEAN SAGE an 

 expert in all the intricacies of the art, and the 

 possessor of all the high qualities and gentle vir- 

 tues of the noble guild of anglers. Judge FULLER- 

 TON, of our party, also possesses this desirable gift 

 of deftness in large measure. If he had turned 

 his attention to mechanics instead of the law, he 

 would have become quite as eminent as an artisan 

 as he now is in the profession he adorns. 



My experience of last year, or rather the expe- 

 rience of others for I was unusually exempt from 

 accidents taught me that it is never safe, where 

 the fish sometimes reach the weight of forty pounds,, 

 to rely upon a single rod, line or reel, however 

 25 



