CHAPTER IX 



THE SALMON 



The Rod The Reel and Line How to use them Casting Striking- 

 Playing a Salmon Sea Trout Fishing 



I HAVE now brought the student on through all the 

 various grades of angling, from the first and earliesl 

 efforts of the tyro amongst the smallest and mosl 

 insignificant quarries of the angler's art, up to what is 

 usually considered the last and highest walk of his skill the 

 capture of the lordly salmon. If I have been somewhat lengthy, 

 the angler must remember that he has reached, in the short 

 space of 225 pages, the point which it took me as it does many 

 others nearly twenty years to reach. 



It has been well said that salmon-fishing is sport for kings, 

 Fox-hunting is a noble pastime, and the first burst from the 

 covert side full of joyous excitement. Drawing a bead on the 

 wild red deer after hours of careful stalking, is no doubt an 

 anxious and exciting second. But the bold rise and the first 

 wild rush of a twenty-pound salmon thrills through the frame 

 as nothing else in the nature of sport does ; and I have nevei 

 known a man who has in him the true essence of a sportsman, 

 and who has for the first time felt and seen the play of a fresh 

 run salmon in his native river, who has not been a salmon- 

 fisher for ever. I have known and heard of scenes and instances 

 where other sports have been given up for salmon-fishing, but 

 never heard I of one (when sport was on) where salmon-fishing 

 was given up for any other : and many a sceptic has been 

 convinced of the truth of all this by having eighteen feet oi 

 hickory and a hundred yards of line put into his hands, with a 

 salmon freshly hooked at one end of the line. 



There is a story told of a pawky old Scot whose wife was 

 very ill, but who, tempted by the fine ply in which the rivei 

 was, had just slipped away and stepped down to " tak a cast o' 

 her." He had just risen and hooked a splendid fish which was 



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