SALMON-ANGLING 



I SHALL hope to be pardoned if I claim for fishing the 

 appellation of a science. I have never considered it, like 

 shooting, a mere art. At all events, it has certainly not 

 yet been brought to perfection ; and the more able the 

 angler, the more willingly will he admit, that not a season 

 passes without his acquiring fresh secrets which he is not 

 over-solicitous to tell. If a man fancies he can jump into 

 proficiency after a season or two's practice, he is vastly 

 mistaken ; it is not a few fishing excursions now and then 

 that form the adept, but the heedful experience of years. 

 Take an instance ; and suppose a man to be expert in the 

 knack of throwing a line ; he is angling down a fine 

 salmon-stream, followed by a finished master of the fly, 

 and has just completed his last throw of a promising pool. 

 Upon looking over his shoulder, his companion has hold of 

 a good fish, at the very part of the cast on which he had 

 bestowed the most care and pains : he immediately suspects 

 that his comrade has been more knowing in the choice of a 

 fly. But when the salmon is landed, he discovers, to his 



