114 A Sportsman at Large 



a club friend known as " Robber " Hinde. The rather 

 opprobrious pseudonym having been awarded him owing to 

 his uncanny habit of winning at pyramids, no matter how 

 severe his handicap. 



He will be remembered as figuring as a " Fenian " in the 

 terrorizing of Dicky Garnett, as already related. 



He was a dead keen fly fisher, so after dinner, I regaled 

 him and the rest of our bunch with a stirring recital of my 

 capture of the salmon, which we had just devoured with much 

 gusto. 



The next day, he accompanied me on the Lough, and when 

 we were on the same drift that had produced my victim and 

 approaching the lucky stone, I spoke him thus : 



" See that stone, Robber ? That's where I got into my 

 fish yesterday. I made a long cast like this (suiting action 

 to word) and just as my fly came round on the lee of the 

 rock like this Here ! hi ! blessed if I haven't got another ! " 

 And faith, so I had ! So equal in weight and alike in 

 appearance were these two that they might have been twins. 



These two salmon were the only ones caught in the Lough 

 that season. 



I have since noticed how very frequently salmon seem to 

 favour some particular " lie " behind a boulder, in a depression 

 or trough on the bottom, or under the ledge of an overhang- 

 ing bank. Pull a fish from out such a hide one day, and another 

 will have taken his place the next. I shall have something 

 more to say on the subject when I come to tackle my Nor- 

 wegian experiences, where this phenomenon is constantly 

 displaying itself. 



