THE GAME FISHES OF THE WOELD 



upstream some three hundred feet, wading, then held her until 

 I was ready. As I cast, thirty feet down, he sprang into the 

 boat, grasped the oar and kept her in the centre of the rushing 

 torrent. The working hypothesis was that the current would 

 carry the heavy bait along as fast as the boat, and that so many 

 steelheads were collected in the centre that the bait would 

 strike one of the fish blindly in the head and he would take 

 it. 



This was precisely what happened. Away we went, rushing 

 down the chute at twenty miles an hour. Then the line tautened, 

 I struck, and clear of the murky old-gold river sprang a vibrant 

 beam of silver. With a violent wrench of the oar my man sent 

 the boat inshore. As she touched the gravel I leaped out and 

 backed into the shallows, and played my fish. In the first 

 five minutes he left the water four or five times, whirling him- 

 self into the air, tossing the spray, and coming down with a crash 

 to make long rushes and take out forty or fifty feet of line, dash- 

 ing upstream and away across ; then when turned, he was swept 

 down by the treacherous torrent that more than once convinced 

 me of the correctness of its naming. 



At last the fish reached the open water below and demon- 

 strated its strength and the resiliency of my eight-ounce rod 

 which had a record of a seventeen-pound yellowtail. If the 

 strength of the steelhead increased with its years it would be a 

 difficult fish to take with any tackle at twenty pounds. 



I played my fish with caution and in twenty minutes had 

 him within reach and in the net : a seven-pounder, silvery, 

 beautiful, and a good table fish, as I had him served that night. 

 The boat was now pushed up against the stream and held while 

 I leaped and again we rushed away to repeat the operation. I do 

 not know whether ' shooting the chutes ' and such ' thrillers ' have 

 reached England, I trust not, but if they have and the unfor- 

 tunate reader has attempted it, if he will but imagine himself 

 endeavouring to fish during the operation, some idea of this 

 particular angling may be realized. 

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