T L Y-F ISHING IN THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER 



" Doctor, for heaven's sake let up on him! He '11 

 smash things if you don't! " 



"Bosh!" came the reply, as the fisherman was 

 •seen to turn the tip of his rod toward mid-stream, 

 its butt outward and downward, with the yielding 

 bamboo arched and quivering under the strain. 



Meanwhile the ceaseless click-click-click showed 

 that the bass stiU held the upper hand. 



Foot by foot came the Doctor nearer to deep 

 water, the fish getting farther and farther away, 

 with about twenty yards of the reel line going 

 down stream with him. It was ten yards more 

 than the Doctor ever yielded before to a bass. 



Gaining a depth sufiicient to play the coppery 

 giant beyond the danger of rock or rapid, the 

 Doctor snubbed his fish sharply. The response 

 came quickly by a surge across stream, swift as 

 an arrow from a bow, straining line, leader, and 

 rod to the utmost tension; but the ball of the 

 ■angler's thumb contained so delicate a nerve, or 

 pulse, trained to danger for use on such occasions 

 as this, that, whenever breakage signals were 

 aboard, the Kne glided through the rod-rings with 

 just sufficient restraint upon it to curb the will 

 of the fighting fish, and take from it, thread by 

 thread, its wild strength of muscle. 



Surge — surge — and surge again, but still 

 in mid-water, for not even the tip of the dorsal 

 &i glinted along the twihght shadows that were 



8 113 



