228 WILD LIFE AND THE CAiAIERA 



when suddenly with a huge splash the fly was 

 taken. Out ran the hne with its musical whirr, a 

 gleam of silver flashed in the sunhght as a grilse 

 leaped from the water. Again and again it jumped 

 and ran. For ten minutes it fought as no other 

 fish ever fights ; then it was brought to gaff. We 

 felt no sense of disappointment at its size — only 

 four and a half pounds — for it was a salmon, 

 though a young one, but together we admired 

 the briUiant silver colour of this fish — (after the 

 salmon has been in the river for a week or two it 

 loses the silver colours, grows almost golden, and 

 then very dark brown) — as we shall probably never 

 admire another. 



The next pool, a smaU one, fell to me, and though 

 I cast industriously for half an hour, I got no rise. 

 In the next two pools we were equally unsuccessful. 

 Then we reached one of the prettiest bits of water 

 on the river — a round, dark pool, overshadowed by 

 a huge rock. For the first ten minutes my friend 

 cast in vain, then suddenly, without any warning, 

 a fair-sized fish (to us it seemed enormous) leaped 

 half its length from the water as it seized the fly. 

 What happened after that I scarcely knew. There 

 was a great amount of jumping, which I tried to 

 photograph, a good deal of reel music, and then, 

 after about twenty minutes, a cessation of hostihties, 

 as the fish retired to the deep water and sulked. 

 We were using hght grilse rods, so the time requu-ed 

 for landing our fish was somewhat drawn out, and 

 with all the strain that could safely be apphed, it 

 required forty minutes to bring that salmon to gaff. 

 It weighed just ten pounds — not a large fish, it's 



