THE LUCK OF SALMON FISHING 91 
killed five more fish, two of them with the fly. 
The other five fish weighed 22^ lb., 17i lb., 
17|- lb., 16| lb., and ISj lb. respectively. 
Strange that I should have had such good luck. 
Strange, surely, that though others far more 
skilful and experienced than I am should have 
fished the same beats in that river and fished many 
more days than I did in each year, such a great 
fish should have come my way in two successive 
Aprils, on each occasion by far the largest seen 
or heard of in the season on the beat in question. 
An old friend of mine, who has fished the same 
river for many years, and is an angler of great 
experience and success, told me that he has never 
killed any fish in that river or anywhere else larger 
than 25 lb. Surely, indeed, I was the spoilt child 
of the fishing deities. 
At the close of this red-letter day two thoughts 
crossed my mind — first, whether the fact that so 
many of my kind friends had earnestly wished that 
I might on this occasion kill a fish as large as the 
one I had lost a year ago had really been a factor 
in my good luck. Who can tell ? The other 
thought which crossed my mind last year also 
when the great fish parted company with me was 
that every fisherman must surely be " a man that 
