SALMON FISHING WITH THE FLY. 241 
exultation and joy runs through your veins as those magic 
words escape your lips... . 
The foregoing description, however uneloquent, may give 
those who have never experienced it a faint idea of what every 
lover of the sport feels on rising and hooking a salmon. 
Anglers I have heard cf who even consider that when once 
they have hooked their fish, the sport is over, and hand the 
rod to their attendant to play and land the fish ; but I prefer 
as long an acquaintance with my salmon as he will vouchsafe 
me, and nothing would ever induce me to give up the rod to 
anyone to play a fish if I could avoid it ; besides, there is the 
finish to look forward to. The few moments of uncertainty 
just before the fish is being gaffed or landed—particularly if he 
should be a heavy one, perhaps the biggest you have ever hooked 
—are most exciting ; and the fishermen who forego this part of 
the performance, lose, I cannot but think, a good deal of the 
pleasure of the sport. There is also a great risk in handing 
over the rod to an attendant 3 in the act of doing so, the line 
must necessarily get slack, and, should the point of the hook 
be only skin deep in the fish, as is often the case, ten to one 
that the angler and fish will part company. Is there a salmon 
fisherman of any experience who has not often seen his fly drop 
out of a fish’s mouth, the moment he was gaffed or landed, 
when the point of his rod was lowered and the line slackened ? 
It might probably not occur to him to ask himself the reason 
why the fly had dropped out ; but if it did, the fact would tell 
its own tale, and he would be made aware that if for one 
moment he had given the fish a slack line, he would never 
have been brought to bank. 
If a fish is well hooked, no harm can come by the rod 
changing hands ; the angler has often to scramble up a steep 
bank when playing his fish, in order to enable him to follow 
him, should he have taken a run up or down stream, in which 
case he will have to hand his rod over for the time being to his 
attendant ; but, as it is impossible to tell whether a fish is 
firmly hooked or not, the rod should never change hands if it 
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