CHAPTER XXI 



SOME GAME FISHES OF THE 

 SCANDINAVIAN PENINSULA 



' A Birr ! a whirr ! a salmon's on, 

 A goodly fish ! a thumper ! 

 Bring up, bring up the ready gaH, 

 And i£ we land him we shall quafi 

 Another glorious biimper ! 



Hark ! 'tis the music of the reel. 



The strong, the quick, the steady ; 

 The line darts from the active wheel. 

 Have all things right and ready.' 



Stoddivrt. 



THE limited salmon fishing in England and Scotland has 

 practically forced many lovers of this particular sport to 

 look to other fields ; and when, in the last century, a wandering 

 English angler discovered that the finest salmon rivers in tlie 

 world, so to speak, were in ISTorway, there was a movement in that 

 direction. In a remarkably short period, England had secured 

 the cream of this field of sport and still holds it, to the general 

 benefit of these fisheries. 



Sir Henry Pottinger says : ' Out of about three-score of first- 

 and second-rate salmon rivers situated between latitude fifty-eight 

 degrees and seventy degrees from Christiansand on th.e south coast 

 to Pasvig on the Varanger fjord, two-thirds are permanently held 

 by Englishmen, and the remainder are chiefly in the hands of com- 

 panies or private owners who let to Englishmen by the season. 

 Very few are retained by Norwegians for their own fishing.' It 

 will be seen that the natives care little for the sport, preferring the 

 money in rentals. They cannot fish the best of their own streams 



20I 



