A Sportsman 351 



for I had a large salmon on my line, which was wild 

 with fright and frantic struggles. As I brought my 

 salmon to gaff, my lead sinker on its short piece 

 of line, some thirty feet above my hook (as I had 

 not then adopted the improved method of connect- 

 ing it near the bait), was seized within six feet of 

 the boat by another salmon, and torn away. I saw 

 distinctly in the clear water as I was reeling in my 

 hooked salmon, the rush of this second one and its 

 quick strike, and the tearing away of my sinker 

 near the surface, suspended on a light piece of line, 

 relieved me from the necessity of taking it off, which 

 I was about to do. I have had salmon strike at my 

 sinker many times, and this was the third instance 

 of having it carried away, showing the disposition 

 of this fish in its normal condition to strike at moving 

 objects. Losing my sinker in this instance, I dis- 

 pensed with it for a while as the salmon were about 

 so plentifully, taking in several with my bait near 

 the surface. 



I could not, at this exciting period when salmon 

 were so plentiful, but regret the time required to 

 fetch them in, requiring from ten to twenty minutes 

 for each. So I had to stop playing my fish, while 

 the great body of anchovies moved on toward the 

 beach shore of the bay, driven on by their relent- 

 less pursuers, followed by the circling clouds of shags, 

 muirs and gulls, and less rapidly by my boat im- 

 peded by the necessity of fighting hooked salmon. 

 But we followed on, finally into the jaws of the ground 

 swell, where for half a mile in length on the sandy 

 beach the salmon held the anchovies for at least 

 two hours. Back, probably, from the advancing 



