154 The American Salmon- fiskerman. 



Perhaps what remains to be said may be best presented 

 in narrative form, since a recapitulation of the points al- 

 ready given may be included, and the whole process of 

 taking a salmon may be described as a unit. Though 

 some of the events here combined really occurred on dif- 

 ferent occasions, still the tale is true to nature in every 

 particular, and no pains shall be spared to make it typical 

 — indeed that it might really be typical is the sole reason 

 why it is not confined to any one single experience in its 

 entirety. 



With Tom, the presiding genius, in the stern, the 

 angler in the middle, and Peter in the bow, the canoe is 

 anchored at the head of a " salmon-pool." The water is 

 from three to six feet deep, clear as crystal, and flowing 

 at the rate of perhaps three miles an hour over a clean 

 stony and gravelly bottom. On the right, as the angler 

 faces down stream, the bank is perhaps a hundred feet 

 distant, while on the other side an unbroken expanse of 

 more or less rapid, and in places deeper water, extends 

 to an island a quarter of a mile distant. A heavy rapid, 

 with waves about two feet high, terminates the pool 

 below, while above the water differs but little from that 

 of the " pool " itself. 



Again and again has the canoe been dropped down 

 with the current to afford the angler a fresh field upon 

 which he may display his fly, but without result. At 

 last, " when he least expects it most," the water boils in 

 the neighborhood of his "Silver Doctcr," his heart gives 

 a bound, and then seems to stop its action, for the fly is 

 untouched. For a few seconds he moves the fly in the 

 subsiding swirl, hoping the fish may turn and take it, but 



