THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 101 



the surface. Let the fly swing down and in across the tail of the 

 flow above the lower broken water. Watch the line. There! 

 It straightens out in a flash ! A broad swirl twists the surface 

 water way out where your line disappears. The tip of your rod 

 is jerked down, and the reel sings. Now mind your footing. 

 It's well that you have plenty of filler. Already the tapered 

 line is clear out and twenty-five, fifty, seventy-five feet of the 

 filler flies from the reel. Then a mighty splash ! Seven pounds 

 of quivering, angry, stubborn fish is contesting with you his right 

 to live. He knows more wiles than a politician, and he tries 

 them all. Time after time he leaps clear of the swift water and 

 scatters diamonds with his lusty tail. Over and over again he 

 lets you coax him to more favorable water, only to rush with 

 renewed vigor back into the swirl. 



But the best fish that swims cannot fight for long against 

 that constant strain of good bamboo and a firm wrist. Little by 

 little he yields, until finally, from sheer exhaustion, courageous 

 to the last, he rolls over and without further protest allows him- 

 self to be lifted from the water at your feet. 



Now, at close range, you can see how it was that he proved 

 so formidable an adversary. Every line in thia lithe creature 

 suggests strength. His fine body, from the end of his nose to 

 the tip of his tail, is just one highly developed, powerful, ex- 

 quisitely efficient muscle. Unlike most creatures whose force 

 must be applied through different limbs and parts working more 

 or less independently, his whole effort is expressed in the one 

 muscle, which is the fish himself. 



I will say here for my two friends, those gentlemen who 

 wielded the fly so marvelously, that at this juncture of the per- 

 formance they lifted the prize from the water, very gently ex- 

 tracted the hook from his bony mouth, gloated over his beauty 

 and his fighting qualities for a brief moment, and returned nim 

 to the stream, a wiser fish and none the worse for his experience. 



I say my two friends did that. I did not. My fish (I use 

 the word in its singular sense) ; the one I finally did land after 

 days of failure, could not have purchased his ransom with all the 

 wealth of King Midas. 



