with the current, well under water, and
slowly works past the big rock in the centre, just at the head of the
rapid. Almost past it, but not quite: for suddenly the fly disappears;
the line begins to run out; the reel sings sharp and shrill; a salmon is
hooked.

But how well is he hooked? That is the question. This is no easy pool to
play a fish in. There is no chance to jump into a canoe and drop below
him, and get the current to help you in drowning him. You cannot follow
him along the shore. You cannot even lead him into quiet water, where
the gaffer can creep near to him unseen and drag him in with a quick
stroke. You must fight your fish to a finish, and all the advantages are
on his side. The current is terribly strong. If he makes up his mind to
go downstream to the sea, the only thing you can do is to hold him by
main force; and then it is ten to one that the hook tears out or the
leader breaks.

It is not in human nature for one man to watch another handling a fish
in such a place without giving advice. "Keep the tip of your rod up.
Don't let your reel overrun. Stir him up a little, he 's sulking. Don't
let him 'jig,' or you'll lose him. You 're playing him too hard. There,
he 's going to jump again. Drop your tip. Stop him, quick! he 's going
down the rapid!"

Of course the man who is playing the salmon does not like this. If he is
quick-tempered, sooner or later he tells his counsellor to shut up. But
if he is a gentle, early-Christian kind of a man, wise as a serpent and
harmless as a dove, he follows the advice that is given to him, promptly
and exactly. Then, when it is all ended, and he has seen the big fish,
with the line over his shoulder, poised for an instant on the crest of
the first billow of the rapid, and has felt the leader stretch and give
and SNAP!--then he can have the satisfaction, while he reels in his
slack line, of saying to his friend, "Well, old man, I did everything
just as you told me. But I think if I had pushed that fish a little
harder at the beginning, AS I WANTED TO, I might have saved him."

But really, of course, the chances were all against it. In such a pool,
most of the larger fish get away. Their weight gives them a tremendous
pull. The fish that are stopped from going into the rapid, and dragged
back from the curling wave, are usually the smaller ones. Here they
are,--twelve pounds, eight pounds, six pounds, five pounds and a half,
FOUR POUNDS! Is not this the smallest