i8 ANGLING 



to the creel the poor little wretch must be treated to the water 

 once or twice again to bob the float and to make believe that he 

 was going to be restored to his native element. Like the pitcher 

 taken to the well, the roach was consigned to the water once too 

 often and he disengaged himself from the odious hook, and the 

 juvenile angler had to go home once more with an empty 

 creel. Mr. Hopper will leave his readers to picture to them- 

 selves the angler's crestfallen demeanour on having to .tell 

 that at last he had caught a fish but that it had got off again. 

 How incredulous such a story would appear, and how the big 

 one would insist upon its entire truth. Mr. Hopper believes he 

 now says that he would have caught fish much sooner than he 

 did but a big cousin used to fit him out with a very big hook 

 much too large for roach, and that it was only when he was 

 supplied with a small hook that he hooked his first fish. 



The writer will now record some reminiscences of a more 

 recent period. Bobbingmoon is and has for many years been 

 very anxious to " play " a salmon ; he had that pleasure for a 

 brief space of time two or three years ago when in Wales, but of 

 course the king of fish managed to get the line round a sharp 

 rock and severed the connecting link between itself and its 

 would-be capturer. Bobbingmoon on this occasion ran imminent 

 risk of immersion, but after the advice so frequently given to 

 Mr. Hopper to keep on the bank he could not consistently take 

 a plunge. Bobbingmoon had no further opportunity when in 

 Wales of putting to the test his gentle touch, so that attribute 

 of his is reserved in its unimpaired integrity until some day in 

 the future when Salmo Ferox, Esq. (an alias of Bobbingmoon's) 

 will be really justified in saying that he has had a touch from a 

 twenty-pounder. 



Mr. Hopper remembers a couple of years ago being with 

 Bobbingmoon and Witchdorter on the Trent patiently wait- 

 ing for the fish to be "on the feed." A hundred yards 

 below us a salmon "picked" right out of the water it 

 was evidently coming up stream and in less than a minute it 

 leapt out of the water about four or five feet below the stern of 

 the boat, which being moored had its head up stream, and it all 



