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SALMON -ANGLING. 



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

 lation 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 on 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 amazement, that it was attracted 

 by a facsimile of the identical fly which a moment before he 

 had so dexterously tendered to its acceptance ! Every really 

 first-rate fly- fisher will meet with such occurrences, when 

 angling in the wake of a less gifted craftsman. And although 

 to the looker-on it appears as if he had charmed the fish, 



