SPORT AMONGST THE MOUNTAINS 249 



But to do Patsy or Sandy justice he is — though 

 sometimes, sub rosd, a bit of a poacher — a keen 

 lover of real sport, and infinitely prefers accom- 

 panying anyone who can throw a fly and kill a fish 

 himself to one of the amateurs aforesaid, in spite of 

 the heavier fee he may expect from the latter. 



A friend called one day on a professional fisher- 

 man near here, and found him lugging a big table 

 about his cabin by the aid of a hook and a bit of a 

 line. " What the divil are ye doin' at all at all ? " 

 asked his friend Corny. " Sure, thin, I'd betther 

 be brakin' the hook in the table than brakin' it in 

 a salmon," was the reply. 



And this little yarn bears a very good practical 

 moral. See that your tackle is sound and perfect 

 in every respect before you go after salmon. 



Ludicrous incidents sometimes happen in salmon- 

 fishing. A bungling amateur on the Bandon river, 

 near Cork, hooked something whicli seemed to him 

 to be an immense and very sulky salmon. The 

 stream was swift, but the fish never travelled very 

 far, moving sluggishly about and resisting all his 

 efforts to bring it to the surface. 



At last, after a long but very uneventful play of 

 about two hours, the thing came into a more rapid 

 part of the stream, lifted to the top of the water, 

 and behold, a big ox-hide, which had been sunk in 



