94 SALMON AND TROUT. 
my friend was taking it easy. Throwing back the rod over my 
left shoulder, and tightening the strain on the fish as much as 
possible, I contrived with the right hand by sheer muscle to 
force the gaff down to the bottom, right under where he was 
lying—a depth perhaps of two and a half or three feet. A lucky 
stroke upwards did the rest at the first attempt. I shall never 
forget the rush that fish gave. For an instant or two it was 
‘pull devil, pull baker.’ But, with the weight of water on him, 
four hands instead of one might have failed to haul him out. 
In the present case, it was perfectly evident that he on the con- 
trary would haul me in. I felt I could not hold on another 
moment, and yet could not bring myself to let go; when 
suddenly the gaff twisted, I imagine, in the socket, cutting the 
line as it came away, and leaving me to struggle my way back 
to terra firma as best I could. 
A long, deep, still pool, some two or three hundred yards 
long, stretched away below the fall, and down the bank of this 
I wended my way towards the next cast, in a sufficiently un- 
amiable frame of mind. Suddenly my eye was caught by some- 
thing that looked like a huge bar of gold wavering slowly with 
the current about mid-stream. I guessed in a moment that it 
was my late antagonist who, poor fellow, had gotten his death 
as well as his liberty. With an impromptu grappling tackle I 
succeeded after a few attempts in hooking and bringing him to 
bank. He was not quite dead, however, but still made a feeble 
fight, and was game to the last ; like Hotspur— 
. in bloody state 
Rend’ring faint quittance, wearied and out-breath’d. 
Another, somewhat ludicrous, incident of this sort occurs to 
my memory, although the successful party in the encounter 
was, I believe, on this occasion a pike. I say I ‘believe,’ 
because the whole of his body except his tail fin was deeply 
embedded in weeds from which it would have been impos- 
sible to extricate him by any legitimate method. 
It was on the Hampshire Avon at Summerley, the beautiful 
