to overflowing!
Water-proof boots are worse than useless for this sort of work. But
happily this is not the usual style of thing that one experiences in
Norwegian fishing. It is only occasionally that one enjoys a treat of
the kind.

In the middle of the gravel-bank the water was only three inches deep,
so I lay down on my back and, once again elevating my ponderous legs in
the air, allowed a cataract of water to flow over me. Somewhat
lightened, I advanced into the hole. It was deeper than I thought. I
was up to the middle in a moment, and sighed as I thought of the boots--
full again. Before I reached the line the water was up to my shoulders;
but it was the still water of the eddy. I soon caught the line and
found that it was round a stump, as I had feared. With a heavy heart I
eased it off--when lo! a tug sent an electric shock through my benumbed
body, and I saw the salmon not three yards off, at the bottom of the
pool! He also saw me, and darting in terror from side to side wound the
line round me. I passed it over my head, however, and was about to let
it go to allow Anders to play it out and finish the work, when the
thought occurred that I might play it myself, by running the line
through my fingers when he should pull, and hauling in when he should
stop. I tried this successfully. In half a minute more I drew him to
within a yard of my side, gaffed him near the tail, and carried him up
the gravel-bank under my arm.

He was not a large fish after all--only thirteen pounds. Nevertheless,
had he been fresh, it would have been scarcely possible for me to hold
his strong slippery body. Even when exhausted he gave me some trouble.
Gaining the shallowest part of the bank I fell on my knees, crammed the
fingers of my left hand into his mouth and gills, and held him down
while I terminated his career with a stone. Thereafter I fixed the hook
more securely in his jaw, and, launching him into the rapid, left Anders
to haul him out, while I made the best of my way to the shore.

This is about the roughest experience I have yet had of salmon-fishing
in Norway.

The season this year bids fair to be a pretty good one. I have had
about twelve days' fishing, and have caught sixteen fish, weighing
together two hundred and seventy-six pounds, two of them being
twenty-eight-pounders.

THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Freaks on the Fells, by R.M. Ballantyne

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