ANGLING IN THE PACIFIC 223 



to mount a spoon-bait. Cohoes which do not average 

 more than 7 lbs. prefer a small lure. Some anglers 

 embellish it with a red tassel a la pike mode, but I 

 confined myself to an unadorned pattern. The tide 

 was at full ebb when we began to troll. There was 

 no need to be told which were the best places ; the 

 salmon themselves soon indicated their whereabouts. 

 Direct against the current or across it yielded the 

 best results. The fish feel the force of the outgoing 

 tide to a degree that makes them eschew its full 

 strength, and confine themselves to the edge on either 

 side. 



My first fish took the spoon just on the margin, 

 and fought as hard as any grilse that I have caught, 

 and my experience covers hundreds. He first kept 

 to the slack water, where he gave a couple of short 

 runs and tried to divest himself of the spoon by 

 jiggering. This policy proved to be unavailing, and 

 he dashed off, and either by accident or malice prepense 

 got in the midst of the current. The tide was run- 

 ning like a mill race — a mile a minute it looked — 

 and fifty yards of line were stripped off the reel 

 before the fish stopped. It is an old dodge of a 

 salmon to get into a swift current and stick there, 

 swaying his broad tail from side to side. The worst 

 part of the business was the enormous quantity of 

 driftwood that the outflowing tide was carrying. I 

 was in constant terror of getting my line foul, a hundred 

 yards of which were out at the time. At one moment 



