198 MOSTLY ABOUT TROUT 



tugging furiously to get free. With so short 

 a rod it is not easy to master such a fish, so I 

 had also provided myself with an immense 

 Nottingham reel, holding about two hundred 

 yards of line. The first snook we can deal with 

 briefly. He tore line off the reel as soon as 

 he was hooked, but all went well, and we got 

 him alongside and gaffed him in about five 

 minutes. He weighed between nine and ten 

 pounds. Now for the great experience. 



The second snook I hooked made a mighty 

 run, the reel screeching on hot bearings as 

 he went. Before his run was at an end the 

 reel came off the rod, banged down on one of 

 the thwarts of the boat and bounded overboard, 

 sinking, spinning as it went, to the bottom of 

 the sea.* There I was, helpless, holding up my 

 rod, with a mad fish at one end of the line and 

 a big reel at the other end, both making off at 

 speed. They say that a drowning man remem- 

 bers all the events of his life during his last 

 few minutes. I have always wondered how they 

 know that he does, but in my own great emer- 

 gency I wished that I could remember whether 

 I had fixed the end of my line firmly to the 

 drum in the middle of the big reel. Anyhow, 

 it was too late to do so now, and the only chance 

 was to retrieve the reel from the bottom, mean- 



