A MARCH SALMON 53 



keen, and the feeling that at every cast a fish 

 may come. One did, on the occasion that I 

 am thinking of, in the first pool. However 

 keen you may be when salmon-fishing, you 

 are keener as you approach a spot where you 

 had a fish or a touch before than you are at 

 other times. The best bit of that pool was 

 about half-way down, and there, the first time 

 down (taking the usual step after every cast), 

 I felt a little pluck ; it was no more. I made 

 a heel-mark in the turf under the heather 

 there, reeled in, and walked back again, waited 

 for what seemed to be a very long time, and 

 fished down to the same spot again. Every 

 step nearer to the mark the excitement in- 

 creased. One yard after I reached it, having 

 almost abandoned hope, he came, was hooked, 

 played, and landed within about nineteen hours 

 of leaving London. A surprising bit of fortune, 

 which few have the good luck to experience 

 with March salmon in that, or any other, river, 

 and it is wonderful how such luck sustains 

 one for many days in the belief that a fish 

 may come at every cast, whether disappointed 

 for a while or not. 



There is something virile about salmon- 

 fishing. The sheer hard work, the endurance, 

 the facing of constant disappointment, and 



