246 Fisninc ty AmErIcAN WATERS. 
ed by fresh-water parasites, return to sea to recuperate and 
fatten preparatory to another visit up the river to their 
spawnineg-erounds, 
One day, while fishing the pool below the falls, I felt a 
tug, and as my reel spun round whir! whir!! whir!!! I 
raised my rod to a perpendicular, when—the reel still con- 
tinuing—I saw three leaps at once, each fish leaping fasten- 
ed to my fly. Thought J, “If you make three leaps at once 
there is small chance of saving you,” and so it resulted. By 
the manceuvre, it formed a bight in my line and unhooked. 
My captures were very fair that day, and it is a remarka- 
bly interesting pool to fish; but the river was so low, and 
its waters so transparent, that I could count scores of salmon 
lying in pairs by the rocks, awaiting a rise in the river to help 
them surmount the chute. 
The next morning I fished the same pool from the opposite 
side of the river, and in response to my second or third cast 
T hooked a Targe salmon, which ran out to the middle of the 
river and took nearly all the line off my reel, when it made 
a leap about twenty feet up the river, and several feet above 
the water, and the swiftness of the current made such a bight 
in my line that its weight parted the single leader, though I 
dipped the point of the rod as I saw the leap coming. As 
my line came back I felt despondent at losing such a beauti- 
ful fish; but I venture to state that no angler, under the cir- 
cumstances, could have saved it. Such is salmon-angling. 
You must use a single gut for the half of your casting-line 
toward the end, and tie your fly on a single gut, or you will 
be regarded as a coarse angler, and all your large scores will 
count you naught as an artist at angling. Here are salmon 
in a broad, rapid river, large enough to try the strongest 
striped-bass tackle; and yet they are to be taken on a single 
gut, and played from half an hour to three hours to bring to 
gaff. Add to the delicacy of play necessitated from the light- 
ness of tackle the fact, also, that the mouth of a salmon is very 
tender. These are points to be noted if you would angle for 
