254 ADVENTURE IN CARHAM WHEEL. 



until the impatient sportsman after trying every means 

 of civil persuasion in vain, and after expending upon 

 him every epithet in the vocabulary, both sacred and 

 profane fairly driven to desperation, ultimately bom- 

 bards the perverse brute with stones, until he again 

 advances to the scratch. A gentleman of my ac- 

 quaintance, the late Major , was actually com- 

 pelled to resort to the above tactics in an encounter with 

 a thirty-six pounder in the Shannon, a few years ago, 

 and fairly pelt him out of the water before he could 

 succeed in killing him. Such are a few of the eccen- 

 tricities displayed by an angry salmon, when it is 

 unreasonably attempted to interfere with his independ- 

 ence, and dictate terms against his will. 



The persevering perversity of the salmon, on some oc- 

 casions, is illustrated by what once occurred to a friend of 

 mine at Carham Wheel. I shall allow him to tell his own 

 story : " I hooked him about midwater out of old John 

 Scott's boat, when I shoved ashore as soon as possible, 

 after he had concluded his preliminary plunges ; but no 

 sooner did I step out of the boat, than off he set at 

 race-horse speed, direct to the far side of the Wheel, 

 where he obdurately lay immovable as a rock, in spite 

 of all my tugs to set him agoing again. I at once em- 

 barked and rowed across, reeling in all the way, but 

 the moment I again put foot on terra firma, off the 

 beast rushed direct across the river, to the precise spot 

 we had left, where he quietly laid himself down just as 

 before. I set off for a second trip after the provoking 

 fish, who rushed away again like lightning the instant 



