GAFFING. 93 



into contact with the flank of his master's favourite bull-dog. 

 Between the imminent peril to his legs on the one side and to 

 his head on the other, the faithful Tim's chances of getting off 

 with a whole skin were at that moment not worth a pin's pur- 

 chase ; but Fate came to his assistance — the gaff turned in the 

 handle, thus releasing its astonished and howling victim, and 

 his master's gathering wrath found vent in a peal of irrepressi- 

 ble laughter. ' Pongo,' however, who I was delighted to meet 

 a few days ago as broad and as ' bull- doggy ' as ever, will bear 

 the gaff mark till his dying day. 



Gaflfing in really rapid torrents is a matter of considerable 

 physical as well as artistic difficulty, and the choice is frequently 

 between Scylla on the one hand and Charybdis on the other. It 

 is often necessary to gaff ' when you can,' to snatch a pass- 

 ing stroke, that is, in the middle of an intervening shallow, or 

 to take a mean advantage of the glimpse of a back fin as it is 

 carried past in a whirl of foam by its still struggling, though 

 retreating owner. In trying these impromptu conclusions, 

 however, the victory is not always with the gaff. Repeatedly, 

 I have seen — and I may say felt ! — the bearer of the gaff 

 dragged head over heels into the stream by the vigorous efforts 

 of a salmon which he was endeavouring to gaff before it was, 

 to use angling vernacular, half-killed. Many similar cata- 

 strophes I have seen averted only by an ignominious let-go of 

 the gaff, and it has more than once happened to me personally 

 to be saved from a ducking by the gaff handle or hook or both 

 giving way. 



I well remember a tussle of this sort when fishing the Usk, 

 two or three years ago, below Pantysgallog Bridge. I had 

 hooked a heavy fish under the fall — at this spot a series of 

 'rushes' over sharp gradients— and he at once headed straight 

 up-stream for the heaviest of them, half-foam half- water. Here 

 he ' sulked,' and nothing I could do would move him. The 

 keeper was invisible, out I managed to get hold of the gaff from 

 the bank where it lay, and then by some slight exercise of 

 agility secured a foothold on a flattish rock right over wherfi 



