THE LAST DAY’S FISHING. 
10T 
lit a good fifteen yards into the smooth water. 
It had hardly sunk when the rod was doubled 
up and the reel screaming. It was clearly a 
big fish. Downstream he went, deep down, 
not jumping, and he must have been a hundred 
yards off before he showed himself, swirling 
up to the top, rolling over, and showing all his 
great depth. You are apt to underestimate 
the weight of dorado, for your eye, judging 
instinctively by length as in the case of salmon, 
allows too little for depth and thickness. A 
well fed dorado is wonderfully deep. But by 
now I had got cunning, and knew he was in the 
neighbourhood of forty pounds. He came up 
twice, and then was firmly and skilfully pulled 
into the backwater. 
Now, while this great fish is sullenly boring 
and jagging in that backwater, something must 
be said, at the risk of wearying the reader, 
about La Cueva del Toro. As has been 
mentioned, two streams meet there. The 
united current swings sharply over towards 
the Paraguay bank and then, turning, rolls 
back towards the Misiones shore, almost com¬ 
pleting a semi-circle, and leaving a big, deep 
still backwater on that side, about one hundred 
yards wide and rather more in length. Now 
the rod, being on that same side, is always 
working on inner lines. Wherever the fish is, 
however far he runs, you can at all points of his 
run pull him across stream into the still water. 
