MEMOIRS OF MONSTERS. 
85 
clone that should have been avoided, or neglected that 
should have been tried. Well, to criticize is easy; so, 
too, it is to haul out heavy but ill-conditioned autumn 
fish from the depths of some sluggish hole. But with 
fresh-run springers in strong Scandinavian streams the 
case is different, and the difficulty greater and more 
varied. Possibly before these notes appear in print, 
I may have held the spring-balance in the snout of a 
fifty-pounder; but freely admit that these misfortunes 
of the past do not greatly enlighten me as to a safer 
course in the future. 
As to “pulling fish out by the roots,” well, that 
cannot be done, even with a ten-pounder; nor is it 
either skilled work or politic, though severe measures 
are at times imperative. 
Incidentally it may be remarked that the mechanical 
advantage appears to lie on the side of the fish; since, 
while the strain on the human arm and back feels like 
half a hundredweight, the utmost pressure actually 
applied to the fish by an eighteen-foot rod barely 
reaches three pounds, or four pounds with a twenty- 
foot rod.* 
But the memory of defeat tends to ill-humour, so 
I will wind up this chapter of accidents. 
* The 15-ft. harling-rods, though apparently so much stiffer and 
stronger than fly-rods, will, I find, only pnll about lbs. 
