HOW TO FISH A WATER. 259 



of the fish that escape from bungling and excited sports- 

 men, are lost from their too eager attempts to secure 

 them, before they are half spent. And as a final warn- 

 ing, I would here remark, that in no case whatever is 

 the rod to be unbent, or the strain removed from the 

 line, until the gaff is securely fixed in the fish, as the 

 hold in his jaws is now torn large, and if the line is 

 relaxed for but an instant, the hook will be certainly 

 thrown out, should he give his head a shake. 



HINTS ON CASTING. 



The salmon-fisher should not regard it a waste of 

 time to fish and refish any known favourite pool several 

 times over, changing his flies each time ; as a salmon will 

 frequently refuse to rise the first time the flies are drawn 

 over him, but may not be able to withstand a second or 

 third temptation. In eriox-fishing this is more espe- 

 cially the case, and the last of three or four rods over the 

 same pool will stand as good a chance as the first. As 

 an illustration of this, I recollect once when at Felton, 

 on the Coquet, in early spring, a few days after the river 

 was open to the rod, three of us fished several miles of 

 water for a whole day, and secured only a couple of fish 

 towards evening ; whilst an old veteran, who confined 

 himself exclusively to three favourite streams, which he- 

 fished over and over again dozens of times, with unpar- 

 alleled perseverance, from nine in the morning to three 

 o'clock in the afternoon, without even a rise, at last 

 had his patience rewarded, and he landed three fine fish 



