PURE FLY-FISHING FOR SALMON.

PART THE FIRST.

CHAPTER I.

IN LAUD OF FLY-FISHING FOR SALMON. ON SALMON FLYRODS, WINCHES, LINES, AND ON THEIR MAKE, MATERIAL, AND MANUFACTURE.

I HAVE many times written about angling apolo getically. I have frequently written in its defence, and very often in praise of it. I was chiefly induced to do so, because the art was defined as the occupation of a ninny by one great writer-Dr. Samuel Johnson; and as the amusement of a cruel disposition by another-the most popular of modern poets-Lord Byron. A host of imbecile babblers and ignorant witlings took up the cry, and ran, as they thought, this creature of their contempt to death. They should have recollected, and the doing so might have cooled

B

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PRAISE OF FLY-FISHING.

the scent, that one of the leaders of the pack was very purblind, and could not see a float or a fly upon the water, or a fish in it; and that the other, when he designated Izaak Walton a "quaint, old cruel coxcomb," was thinking of the minute and complacent manner in which the threading of a worm, or the impaling of a frog on the hook, is taught in "The Complete Angler, or Contemplative Man's Recreation." The poet made the amende honorable to Anglers, when the harmlessness and charms of fly-fishing were explained to him, and the great common-sense moralist would have done the same, if he had read with genial attention the poem of one he justly denominated "a soft and civil companion." I allude to the poet Gay's "Rural Sports," in which will be found a pretty description of fly-fishing. Now, I shall have no apology to make in behalf of the branch of the angling art in these pages attempted to be taught, for in the practice of it nothing is tortured as a bait-neither worm, insect, nor any other living thing, the lowest or least sensitive in the scale of creation.

In praise of fly-fishing I shall have to writeI cannot refrain from doing so. Fly-fishing for salmon I have, recently, very acutely and abundantly enjoyed; so much so, that when my mind.

A PICTURESQUE RETROSPECT.

3

reverts to it, forthwith most pleasant recollections crowd in upon me. I see before me, almost in palpable form, the Sutherlandshire salmon streams I, the past season, fished-I see the rocky cliffs, so monotonous in appearance when not diversified by the colours and shapes of creeping plants, through which stony obstructions water has, after centuries of toil, cut a way of irregular and diverse width, and tortuous direction-I see impending mountains, in parts bristling with more than one species of fir, or shining from the brightness of the agitated birch leaves; and in the spots of the mountain flanks, where I do not see these, I behold the pale violet colour of the bluebell, or the pink blossom of the far-famed heather

I see the spring of the silver-sided salmon, whether made in wantonness, or to clear some impediment to its journey towards the spawning shallows, higher up the river; or, more exciting still, I see the fierce fish, with semi-opened mouth, either rush like the bull-dog, or steal like the cat, after the angler's fly, as he draws it inwards towards him-I see the fly seized, and the fish turn downwards in the water, to skulk with it, so I fancy, to its subaqueous lair, and there devour it in solitary greediness—I see frightful disappointment caused to its gluttinous instinct :

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AN EXCITING STRUGGLE DESCRIBED.

no sooner does the angler feel his fly arrested in its progress by a smart snap and pull, than he lifts the point of his rod with a gentle jerk, and lo! the unsuspecting fish is hooked.

A stimulating struggle is the next thing I se e -a struggle between the art of the fisherman, and the innate wily resources and strength of the fish-disappointed, surprised, and, may be, maddened into instantaneous and furious effort, if it have been stricken-if the lethalis arundo, the deadly barb, have been driven into cartilage or flesh too roughly. I can perceive, by the loud and rapid ticking of the winch, sounding like the whirr of an alarum clock, how quickly line is unwound by the harpooned fish in its flight; or I see it repudiate flight, and sullenly, after a drag or two, sink nearly to the bottom of the water, and there, working to and fro with head and tail, endea- ́ vour to reject the hook, or break from it; or I see the hooked fish, still more impatient, throw somerset after somerset high above the water, in order to break from the bit and bridle that hamper the freedom of its motions. I see the lusty fish break away from the hook and escape, or I see it rush circularly round a rock, and cut, by means of a sharp stony edge, or against a rougher one wear away to breaking, the gut-rein, which, under other

THE PLEASURES OF DIFFICULT VICTORY. 5

circumstances, would have held in the mightiest Samson of the salmon race. If these mishaps and miscarriages recur pleasantly to my recollection, how much more pleasantly to it must come memories of success-remembrance of piscatorial prowess performed under difficultiesthe powerful fish conquered amidst rushing, roaring waterfalls, amidst rocks on land and rocks in water, where trees impede the hand and nearly impassable cliff-paths impede the foot-and the weapons of conquest a frail rod, of fairy, wandlike joints, a casting line, and hook, of despicable fineness and size! Great and suggestive of good is the wonder in which we gaze at the silver-sided salmon its strength wasted and its struggles o'er-lying there upon that gravelly or rocky shore, seduced by a feather-and-fur semblance of an insect, a winged one, the fanciful creation of some angling artist's brain, and slain by implements, which, if the power of leverage had not been called into action, would have been shivered by the first adverse plunge of the salmon, as easily as the reeds of the jungle are smashed by the rush of the wild boar! The contemplation of these things is very pleasant; the far-off, retrospective, and prospective contemplation of them, -for what has happened before, we fondly hope