him back into open water. But after a few desperate tugs, he was compelled, for the time, to give up the effort and permit him to sulk-preserving, however, a taut line, measured with mathematical nicety, upon the stubborn brute. Salmon will sometimes sulk thus for hours, in seeming disregard and contempt of any pressure you dare bring upon them. For more than thirty minutes DUN sat

"Like Patience on a monument, smiling at Grief,"

when he deemed it high time to assume the aggressive. So he ordered his canoemen to paddle cautiously toward the "objective point," while he reeled up his two hundred feet of taut line until every muscle ached with the pressure. He had reached within fifty feet of his leader, but not a tail wagged; thirty feet, but nothing was felt but the steady tension of the quivering line; ten feet, the same. All was as still and motionless as the old granite bowlder which looked down upon the dark waters amid whose eddying currents leader and fly were hidden from vision. Angler and gaffer were alike perplexed. So near a fish and no sign of life! Nothing like it had passed into the annals of angling. "Slide your paddle down cautiously and start him," said DUN. Down slid the paddle, but nothing came of it. but take care that he doesn't rush under the canoe."

"Try again;

Down again went the paddle, when, mystery of mysteries! it struck, not a salmon, but the rock around which the salmon had twisted the leader, broken loose from the fly and so escaped, a wiser if not a better fish, quite prepared to resume his game of leap-frog long before his disappointed captor could reel in the fifty ton bowlder at which he had been tugging lustily for more than thirty minutes!

Our conversation in camp was of rather a frivolous character that evening. We were afraid to introduce any weighty subject lest our friend should interpret it as a personal reflection!

CHAPTER XVII.

DIFFERENCE IN FISH GAFFING SALMON

THE

REEL-CLICK.

Doubt not, sir, but that Angling is an art, and an art worth your learning: the question is, rather, whether you be capable of learning it.-[Sir Izaak Walton.

N one sense, all salmon, like all men, are alike: but like all men, also, they are very unlike in behavior under given circumstances. I once brought a fifteen-pound salmon to gaff in ten minutes, and I have had a two hours' struggle with others of no greater weight; just as some men suc

cumb when so much as a shadow

of adversity crosses their pathway, while others fight on so long as a peg remains to hang a hope upon. The former are the negatives of the race, only useful in swelling the numerals of a census table. The latter not only "conquer fate" by their pluck and energy, but are the architects of towns, cities, states and empires. It is only when "Greek meets Greek" that there

66

comes the tug

of war," and it is only when the angler strikes a

fighting salmon that he properly appreciates their muscular energy and great endurance.

It is not always possible to give a reason for the difference in the play of different fish of the same species. Every one has his theory. One says it is in the sex. Another, that it depends upon their recent or remote advent into fresh water, and others upon where the fish is hooked. It is undoubtedly true that, as a rule, there is more game in the male than in the female salmon, and that fish fresh from the ocean are the most muscular and ferocious. But I have had equal sport with fish of either sex, and have found as tough customers fifty miles from the sea as in close proximity to it. The difference, I fancy, depends upon how and where they are hooked. A barb through the tongue of a salmon is like a curb on the jaws of a horse; he may have the disposition to run, but he doesn't fancy the unpleasant sensation which follows his attempt to do so. Another reason is, the seeming dull perception of some fish. Like some men, it takes them a good while to get over their astonishment at finding something wrong, and before they really comprehend the situation, they lose their advantage and are gaffed.

I had a very interesting illustration of this one day. I was fishing at a point where counter currents met, and where, consequently, it was difficult

to keep out a straight line without constant casting. Becoming weary with this sort of perpetual motion, I allowed my line to slacken and my fly to perambulate at its own sweet will. While they were thus floating in a circle, the fly out of sight, I felt a slight tug and began to reel up leisurely, annoyed that my lure had, as I supposed, been taken by a trout. Every movement, for half a. minute, seemed to confirm this impression, and I had stopped reeling to give expression to my disappointment, when the fish started in gallant salmon style, leaped his full length out of water, and gave me all I could do for three hours and twenty minutes before he was brought to gaff, and then he was only struck by a chance blow as he was rushing, in full life, past my canoe in swift water. What I supposed, at first, to be merely a two or three-pound trout proved to be a twentyseven-pound salmon. If I had been in shoal water when I first reeled him up to within twenty feet of my canoe, I might have ended his career in ten minutes. The hook had struck him at some callous point, and he followed the gentle lead I gave him without sense of pain or danger, and only made a dash when he saw the canoe with its threatening surroundings.

In gaffing this fish while on the run in swift water, my Indian guide proved himself an expert.