THE FIRST DAY’S FISHING. 
45 
of it broke off, the future seemed gloomier and 
gloomier. At last, however, a stronger part 
was reached. Something had to be done, so a 
new trace and spoon were knotted on. Pedroso, 
who was lying back in the canoe smoking one of 
those terrible cigars in which he delighted, 
roused himself, and half paddled and half 
punted up the lake-like edge of the river until 
we got back to the head of the stream where we 
had begun. 
I forget how many more casts were made, 
certainly not six, before another great fish was 
tearing across the river. He might have been 
brother to the one who had just broken the 
line, except that he jumped oftener. The first 
rush of a big dorado is like nothing on earth. 
Something will be said later about his fighting 
qualities, and how he compares with the salmon. 
But about the first rush there can be no doubt. 
He goes straight off full pace at once. However 
hard you hold (and you have to forget all your 
salmon fishing and hold thirty pound dorado as 
though they were half pound trout), you will be 
lucky if you stop him under one hundred yards, 
and I once had one hundred and eighty yards 
ripped off without a pause. His first rush is 
usually down; but he will suddenly turn and go 
across and up, and then perhaps straight down 
again. So you have to be hard and skilful if 
you are to avoid a bagged line, and a bagged 
line is fatal, for there is no river in which the 
