id="pgepubid00014">CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER.

VII.—THE DUFFER WITH A SALMON-ROD.

No pursuit is more sedentary, if one may talk of a sedentary pursuit, and none more to my taste, than trout-fishing as practised in the South of England. Given fine weather, and a good novel, nothing can he more soothing than to sit on a convenient stump, under a willow, and watch the placid kine standing in the water, while the brook murmurs on, and perhaps the kingfisher flits to and fro. Here you sit and fleet the time carelessly, till a trout rises. Then, indeed, duty demands that you shall crawl in the manner of the serpent till you come within reach of him, and cast a fly, which usually makes him postpone his dinner-hour. But he will come on again, there is no need for you to change your position, and you can always fill your basket easily—with irises and marsh-marigolds.

"I wade in as far as I can, and make a tremendous swipe with the rod."

Such are our county contents, but woe befall the day when I took to salmon-fishing. The outfit is expensive, "half-crown flees" soon mount up, especially if you never go out without losing your fly-book. If you buy a light rod, say of fourteen feet, the chances are that it will not cover the water, and a longer rod requires in the fisherman the strength of a SANDOW. You need wading-breeches, which come up nearly to the neck, and weigh a couple of stone. The question has been raised, can one swim in them, in case of an accident? For one, I can answer, he can't. The reel is about the size of a butter-keg, the line measures hundreds of yards, and the place where you fish for salmon is usually at the utter ends of the earth. Some enthusiasts begin in February. Covered with furs, they sit in the stern of a boat, and are pulled in a funereal manner up and down Loch Tay, while the rods fish for themselves. The angler's only business is to pick them up if a salmon bites, and when this has gone on for a few days, with no bite, Influenza, or a hard frost with curling, would be rather a relief. This kind of thing is not really angling, and a Duffer is as good at it as an expert.

Real difficulties and sufferings begin when you reach the Cruach-na-spiel-bo, which sounds like Gaelic, and will serve us as a name for the river. It is, of course, extremely probable that you pay a large rent for the right to gaze at a series of red and raging floods, or at a pale and attenuated trickle of water, murmuring peevishly through a drought. But suppose, for the sake of argument, that the water is "in order," and only running with deep brown swirls at some thirty miles an hour. Suppose also, a large presumption, that the Duffer does not leave any indispensable part of his equipment at home. He arrives at the stream, and as he detests a gillie, whose contempt for the Duffer breeds familiarity, he puts up his rod, selects a casting line, knots on the kind of fly which is locally recommended, and steps into the water. Oh, how cold it is! I begin casting at the top of the stream, and step from a big boulder into a hole. Stagger, stumble, violent bob forwards, recovery, trip up, and here one is in a sitting position in the bed of the stream. However, the high india-rubber breeks have kept the water out, except about a pailful, which gradually illustrates the equilibrium of fluids in the soles of one's stockings. However, I am on my feet again, and walking more gingerly, though to the spectator, my movements suggest partial intoxication. That is because the bed of the stream is full of boulders, which one cannot see, owing to the darkness of the water. There was a fish rose near the opposite side. My heart is in my mouth. I wade in as far as I can, and make a tremendous swipe with the rod. A frantic tug behind, crash, there goes the top of the rod! I am caught up in the root of a pine-tree, high up on the bank at my back. No use in the language of imprecation. I waddle out, climb the bank, extricate the fly, get out a spare top, and to work again, more cautiously. Something wrong, the hook has caught in my coat, between my shoulders. I must get the coat off somehow, not an easy thing to do, on account of my india-rubber armour. It is off at last. I cut the hook out with a knife making a big hole in the coat, and cast again. That was over him! I let the fly float down, working it scientifically. No response. Perhaps better look at the fly. Just my luck, I have cracked it off!

Where is the fly-book? Where indeed? A feverish search for the fly-book follows—no use: it is not in the basket, it is not in my pocket; must have fallen out when I fell into the river. No good in looking for it, the water is too thick, I thought I heard a splash. Luckily there are some flies in my cap, it looks knowing to have some flies in one's cap, and it is not so easy to lose a cap, without noticing it, as to lose most things. Here is a big Silver Doctor that may do as the water is thick. I put one on, and begin again casting over where that fish rose. By George, there he came at me, at least I think it must have been at me, a great dark swirl, "the purple wave bowed over it like a hill," but he never touched me. Give him five minutes law, the hook is sure to be well fastened on, need not bother looking at that again. Five minutes take a long time in passing, when you are giving a salmon a rest. Good times and bad times and all times pass, so here goes. It is correct to begin a good way above him and come down to him. I'm past him; no, there is a long heavy drag under water, I get the point up, he is off like a shot, while I stand in a rather stupid attitude, holding on. If I cannot get out and run down the bank, he has me at his mercy. I do stagger out, somehow, falling on my back, but keeping the point up with my right hand. No bones broken, but surely he is gone! I begin reeling up the line, with a heavy heart, and try to lift it out of the water. It won't come, he is here still, he has only doubled back. Hooray! Nothing so nice as being all alone when you hook a salmon. No gillie to scream out contradictory orders. He is taking it very easy, but suddenly he moves out a few yards, and begins jiggering, that is, giving a series of short heavy tugs. They say he is never well hooked, when he jiggers. The rod thrills unpleasantly in my hands, I wish he wouldn't do that. It is very disagreeable and makes me very nervous. Hullo! he is off again up-stream, the reel ringing like mad: he gets into the thin water at the top, and jumps high in the air. He is a monster. Hullo! what's that splash? The reel has fallen off, it was always loose, and has got into the water. How am I to act now? He is coming back like mad, and all the line is loose, and I can't reel up. I begin pulling at the line to bring up the reel, but the reel only lets the line out, and now he is off again, down stream this time, and I after him, and the line running out at both ends at once, and now my legs get entangled in it, it is twisted all round me. He runs again and jumps, the line comes back in my face, all slack, something has given. It is the hook, it was not knotted on firmly to start with. He flings himself out of the water once more to be sure that he is free, and I sit down and gnaw the reel. Had ever anybody such bad fortune, but it is just my luck!

I go back to the place where the reel fell in, and by pulling cautiously I extract it from the stream. It shan't come off again; I tie it on with the leather lace of one of my brogues. Then I reel up the slack, and put on another fly, out of my cap, a Popham. Then I fish down the rest of the pool. Near the edge, in the slower part of the water, there is a long slow draw, before I can lift the point of the rod, a salmon jumps high out of the water at me,—and is gone! I never struck him,