SALMON- ANGLING. 339 



sistingly through the shallow. The day following, about two 

 o'clock, I was at this pool, with little hope of success. To 

 my surprise, I fairly hooked and landed the same salmon. 

 Some, I know, will shake their heads, with, " A different fish, 

 no doubt." My proofs to the contrary are strong. First, it 

 was so early in the autumn that there were very few salmon 

 much discoloured by the fresh water, and no potted ones that 

 I had yet seen. At the very first rise I noted how much he 

 was darkened by being long in the river, and saw at once that 

 he had chosen his winter pool. Next, when hooked both the 

 former times, I calculated his weight between ten and twelve 

 pounds ; when I secured him, he almost touched the eleven 

 pounds. Lastly, he never left the pool at all was finally 

 killed in it and no other fish supplied his place. This I made 

 sure of by constantly throwing a cast over the pool in passing, 

 and fishing it blank to the end of the season. Upon men- 

 tioning these facts shortly after to a Dee angler of thirty 

 years' practice, he capped them by a feat of his own, well 

 known to the old fishers of the place. He hooked a fifteen- 

 pound fish at Banchory Bridge worked him for half an hour 

 and lost him, when quite done up, by a piece of the gill 

 giving way, which he found attached to the hook. Next day 

 he again hooked a salmon in the same cast, and soon noticed 

 a white mark on his lip. When brought to land, there was a 

 hole corresponding exactly to the bit of gill on his hook the 

 day before. 



Another well-authenticated Dee-side story of former days 

 has been told me. An old General hooked a salmon, which 

 ran out all his wheel-line. The important knot at the line- 

 end had been neglected, so he helplessly witnessed its dis- 

 appearance through the rings into the rapid current. Euefully 

 wandering back, he got a glimpse of some line floating in a 

 quiet bay, about a mile below the place where he lost the fish. 

 It was easily seized, brought through the rings again with 

 great deliberation, and of course well knotted. In winding 



